Shep Smith spread a thin veneer of respectability on Fox News Monday when he took Trump's ridiculous tweet where he spoke of himself in the third person and slammed Robert Mueller along with Rudy Giuliani's insane spin over the past day or so and rightly called them "straw man arguments."

Here is the crazy tweet. Don't you love the whole third person self-reference? It is as if Trump needed desperately to remind himself and everyone else of his current job description.

This tweet was the beginning of a series of rage-tweets, sparked by something. What, we do not (yet) know, but Paul Manafort's trial begins today, and Trump is afraid.

Shep destroys Trump's claims:

Last year, The New York Times reported President Trump tried to get Mueller fired over what the president claims are conflicts of interest. One of them was the dispute over fees at the president's golf club in Virginia outside DC. A special counsel spokesperson said Mueller left without dispute. As for the president turning down Mueller to be the FBI director, the day before the Justice Department appointed him to run the special counsel's Russia investigation, Justice Department officials say ethics experts determined the appointment was, indeed, appropriate.

Now here comes Rudy with the whole "Collusion is not a crime" argument on behalf of the shitgibbon.

And once again, Shep Smith destroys that argument:

President Trump has repeatedly said there was no obstruction, there was no collusion. And this morning his lawyer said collusion is not a crime.

Guliani is essentially making a straw man argument and it is deceptive. While the U.S. criminal code does not criminalize colluding, per se, it is a crime to conspire with a foreign adversary to influence or undermine our election or any other government action. Special counsel prosecutors have gotten indictments against more than 20 Russians, three Russian companies, and several former Trump campaign members, including guilty pleas from a foreign policy adviser and a national security adviser. Both of those pled guilty. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort pleaded not guilty. He's set to go on trial tomorrow.

Whether or not it is Manafort's trial, or stories about to come out, or just simple stupid counterspin, Shep Smith is certainly right: Rudy is constructing a straw man argument to deceive viewers and spin away from Trump's conspiracy to steal the election.

But Paul Manafort goes on trial today. Jury selection begins. And things will be said in a public trial that will point back to Donald Trump and his conspiracy to steal the election and power.

For a few minutes, someone on Fox News will tell the truth like Shep Smith did. And the other 23 hours will be loaded with spin, deflection, lies, and a ton of spaghetti they will throw on the wall in order to convince as many people as possible that Trump did not, at the very least, conspire with Russia to take power away from voters and place it in his own hands.