President Donald Trump was caught in a recording yesterday admitting that he made uninformed claims that there was an imbalance in trade between Canada and the U.S. during a meeting with Justin Trudeau.

Today, Trump’s camp continues to double down on those claims despite official reports stating otherwise.

The Washington Post says President Trump boasted to peers in Missouri that during a meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau that he ‘made up’ the fact that the U.S. had a trade deficit with Canada.

The audio obtained by the post had Trump say, “Wrong Justin, you do. I didn’t even know, I had no idea. I just said, you’re wrong. You know why? Because we’re so stupid.”

For political scientist George Breckenridge, this was a first in a presidency that has been anything but boring.

“I think, I’m not surprised except that he admitted it. It’s the first time that he admitted that he just makes things up.”

Breckenridge says Trump’s claim contradicts his own report.

“Even the official report of the President’s economic report, that he signs, says that Canada has a trade surplus.”

The office of the U.S. Trades Representatives says that goods and services trades between our two countries in 2016 totalled over $627-billion, with the U.S. running a surplus of $12.5 billion.

Despite the facts, Trump doubled up on his stance, tweeting in part “‘we do have a trade deficit with Canada, as we do with almost all countries (some of them massive) PM Justin Trudeau of Canada, a very good guy, doesn’t like saying that Canada has a surplus vs the U.S. (negotiating) but they do…’

Soon after, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders parroted Trump’s claim.

“Iit’s not complete, once you take in to the full account all of the trade between the two countries it shows there is a trade deficit between those two.”

Former U.S. ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman vented his frustrations with his President on Twitter saying Trump is being reckless and that “the President is casually throwing Canada under the bus and this is just wrong.”

With this latest incident, coupled with NAFTA’s on-going renegotiations, Breckenridge feels Canadian leaders are doing their best to work with Trump.

“They’ve been playing what I call ‘good cop bad cop’. Where Trudeau is the good cop and Chrystia Freeland is the bad cop and she’s been pretty tough. And I think they’re handling it pretty well given this strange guy that you’re stuck with.”

Breckenridge says that despite the unique circumstances surrounding NAFTA negotiations, he believes that it’ll eventually be complete with some minor changes and doesn’t see it being scrapped altogether as Trump has threatened numerous times in the past.