Here’s how the cycle works: Donald Trump promotes birther conspiracies. Someone in the media calls out Donald Trump for promoting birther conspiracies. Donald Trump fires back at the media. The media hits back at Trump and once again devoting all sorts of coverage to debunking the already-debunked birther claims. Trump accuses the media of being irresponsible, then goes back into promoting birther conspiracies. In fact, Trump was ripping the media less than 24 hours ago. In a sit-down with TIME‘s Joe Klein, Trump referred to some reporters he knows as “the most dishonest people ever.”

But make no mistake, Trump loves this. When he keeps saying that he just wants to talk about the issues and not birtherism, it’s a load of crap. He’s drawing the media in by talking about the birther stuff, then as soon as they’re close enough to bite, he backs off and turns the tables on them. And the media really shouldn’t be indulging him on this.

When Ashleigh Banfield asked Blitzer why he thinks Trump is pursuing this nonsense, Blitzer first clarified that he believes Trump to be an “intelligent guy,” before saying that “the obvious reason is, he believes it.” Excuse me! Have we even considered that Trump might be just making this stuff up for the fun of it? This is a man who loves and lives for controversy.