Over the weekend, President Donald J. Trump accused former President Barrack Obama of wiretapping him during the previous national election without a single inkling of evidence, yet again spewing out the same ignorant rhetoric Trump has been spitting since long before he ran for office.

Trump tweeted the following: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” and “How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

I keep re-reading these tweets, trying to make better sense of these accusations, but I only feel the same embarrassment as a middle schooler feels when his or her friends make up terrible rumors about someone in your class. It’s childish to see this kind of conduct carried out by a United States president (let alone on a separate, unofficial Twitter account).

Breaking down Trump’s fragmented “statements” makes me want to vomit even more. It is clear to me this man knows quite a few buzzwords, but practically none of the definitions.

McCarthyism is most famously associated with Joseph McCarthy — the Wisconsin senator who was responsible for one of the largest modern day witch hunts, the Red Scare. His name was picked up and used to label this term, which in these cases means to blatantly make accusations, specifically about subversion or treason, without proper evidence. Usually these decisions are seen as unfair and regard someone using investigative techniques against another party.

Trump is very literally calling the kettle black in this instance. I feel like he has been trying so hard to subvert attention from his policies and mistakes that he will do anything, even accuse a former president, whose representatives came out and called the statements blatantly false.

It brings me back to my days as a young kid in constant turmoil with my younger brother — “No, Jonathan stole the cookies. I had nothing to do with that.”

In regards to his second statement, did he really mean to say a “sacred election process“?

Let’s be real — the Russian hackers who got into the U.S. election probably had some connections to Vladimir Putin, who we most DEFINITELY know has a personal relationship with Trump. If anyone has the position to speak on the sanctity of the American election process, it for sure isn’t Trump. I’m sure Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward would be pretty appalled with Trump anyways — ultimately digging into some injustices themselves.

The one piece of advice I can offer is to try not to let these ridiculous statements and the statements the administration is sure to make in the future act like a wedge. I may be wrong, but I have the feeling that everything the administration does serves to divide us and nothing else completely.

Don’t drink the Trump Kool-Aid. Keep your wits about you and disseminate your information with the largest grains of salt you can find.

Will Izzo can be contacted at [email protected].