The latest clip of U.S. State Department John Kirby’s press conference antics is a wonder to behold. Kirby is playing his A-game here, bewildering his audience with pre-prepared pseudo-answers that do not answer the relevant question in any way, shape or form, and clearly enjoying it in the process.

Here’s the unedited exchange:

The U.S. State Department has clearly mastered the art of completely subverting the actual purpose of interacting with the press. Rather than just discontinuing the practice of interacting with reporters at all – which would at least be honest – they have descended to the level of propping up a talking head to give reporters absolutely no useful information. He just reads a prepared statement that contains no actual information, then repeats that non-answer without even acknowledging the fact that it is nonsense. The reporters may as well consult a magic 8 ball.