New York's Olivia Nuzzi had a pretty crazy Tuesday, unexpectedly invited into the Oval Office where she interviewed President Trump — then White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and sundry other Trump administration officials. In her entertaining writeup, "you call this meeting a 'private Oval Office press conference,'" CNN's Don Lemon reminded Nuzzi on Wednesday night. "And it's a wild read. Tell us about it." Watching one top Trump official after another parade in, purportedly serendipitously, to insist that the White House was a sea of tranquility "felt, frankly, ridiculous after a while," she said. "You know, I was on no sleep at all, and I hadn't had coffee, and I just kept thinking, like, what is happening?"

Alice Stewart, a GOP strategist and Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) former communications director, jumped in to congratulate Nuzzi on the story, on her own behalf and, more surprisingly, on behalf of the White House. Stewart said she was eating at a restaurant on Wednesday evening, saw one of the officials in Nuzzi's article, mentioned she was going on CNN with Nuzzi, and asked him what he thought of the article. "He said, 'Make sure to tell Olivia that this was a very fair piece.' They were pleased with how it came out, because it was virtually — the piece was like you were live-blogging," Stewart said. "They say this is a classic case of what 'fake news' is not. And so they wanted to say that the appreciated the opportunity that you gave them to tell the story, and I think you did a great job."

"Wait, Alice, who said that?" Nuzzi said. "I've gotta know." "I cannot reveal my sources," Stewart said, laughing. Watch below. Peter Weber

In case there was any doubt that 2018 has lasted approximately 200 years, take a look at the Time "Person of the Year" shortlist. It is ... exhausting:

Remember the North Korea summit, a few short lifetimes ago? Or the Royal Wedding, which feels like a distant, hazy dream? And how about March for Our Lives, which either took place in March or the Paleoarchean Era (both seem equally plausible)?

There is only one takeaway from all this: Make 2019 the year of the nap. Jeva Lange

When President Trump makes a false claim, he doesn't just do so once or twice. He repeats it over and over again, even after being corrected.

Nobody knows that better than the fact-checkers at The Washington Post, who have meticulously examined virtually every one of the president's claims and in November found that he made more than 6,000 false statements since being inaugurated. This has inspired the Post to introduce an entirely new rating for their fact-checker section, which normally operates on a one-to-four Pinocchio scale: the Bottomless Pinocchio.

This, the Post explains, is a rating given out to "politicians who repeat a false claim so many times that they are, in effect, engaging in campaigns of disinformation." In other words, it's for Trump, who the Post writes is "not merely making gaffes or misstating things" but is "purposely injecting false information into the national conversation."

In order to receive a Bottomless Pinocchio, a politician must repeat a claim that has received a rating of three or four Pinocchios at least 20 times. Don't be surprised to see Trump rack up the Bottomless Pinocchio ratings, considering according to the Post, 14 of his false statements - one of which has been repeated 87 times - already qualify. Read more about the new rating at The Washington Post. Brendan Morrow

President Trump on Monday again declared on Twitter that there was no collusion between his presidential campaign and Russia, although he did not earn high marks for spelling in the process.

In response to former FBI Director James Comey's recent Congressional testimony, Trump declared while citing Fox News that Democrats failed to find a "Smocking Gun." He spelled the word "smoking" incorrectly for a second time in the next sentence, going on to insist that his former lawyer Michael Cohen's payment of hush money to two women was a "simple private transaction" and not a "campaign contribution." But even if it wasn't on the up and up, then it's his "lawyer's liability if he made a mistake, not me," Trump wrote.

Trump over the summer deleted and reposted a tweet in which he also incorrectly spelled the word "smoking." Brendan Morrow

The domestic box office fell to a three-year low in 2017, but with the help of superheroes, dinosaurs, and Lady Gaga, this year is set to shatter records.

ComScore estimates that the domestic box office will reach $11 billion by Tuesday or Wednesday of this week, which means it will have taken either 345 or 346 days to do so, Deadline reports. That would be the quickest the U.S. box office has ever reached $11 billion, with the previous record being 361 days in 2016, a year when the final yearly total ended up being $11.3 billion. That year, only $10.3 billion had been grossed by this point in December.

That's great news for Hollywood after the total domestic box office just barely reached $11 billion last year and saw a 6.2 percent decline in tickets sold over 2016, per Box Office Mojo. But 2018 delivered two new entries into the all-time top five highest grossing films domestically: Black Panther, which grossed $700 million, and Avengers: Infinity War, which grossed $678 million. Three films this year made more than $600 million domestically (Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Incredibles 2), whereas in 2017, only Star Wars: The Last Jedi was able to cross that threshold, and no movie did so in 2016 at all.

The $11 billion total will be reached long before the massively profitable Christmas season, and this year, Star Wars' absence from cinemas has left room for five major blockbusters: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Mortal Engines, Aquaman, Bumblebee, and Mary Poppins Returns. The box office is currently on pace to finish somewhere around $11.7 billion or $11.8 billion, which would already be the best year ever, but Deadline writes that depending on how this upcoming holiday brawl shakes out, it's entirely possible 2018 could reach $12 billion for the first time in history. Brendan Morrow

In August 2016, when Hillary Clinton was widely expected to be elected president, Argentina's new president regaled Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior U.S. officials with a story about Clinton's underdog rival, Donald Trump, Axios reports. Argentina's Mauricio Macri, elected president in 2015, has a long history with Trump, dating back to a contentious business deal between Trump and Macri's father. So Macri was surprised, he told the Americans, when Trump called him up out of the blue during Macri's campaign to offer help.

As Macri reportedly told the story, imitating Trump during the recounting, Trump told him he'd been watching Macri, adding, "I remember you fondly and I remember the business deal." Since the deal hadn't gone well, Macri said, he responded: "Fondly? Fondly, you son of a gun?" Then Trump offered help, and Macri shrugged it off until a FedEx envelope with a check arrived. The three people who told Axios the story couldn't agree on whether Trump's check was for $500 or $5,000, but they all remembered the punch line: "It bounced."

The White House declined to comment to Axios, and Argentina denied that the conversation ever took place. "The conversation certainly did take place," Axios rebuts. "It's not conceivable that our three sources could have colluded to make this up." Still, Macri's administration has diplomatic and practical reasons to deny the story: Trump tends to take public slights seriously and if the anecdote's true, Macri would have technically broken Argentina's rarely enforced restrictions against accepting foreign campaign donations. Peter Weber

French President Emmanuel Macron will make his first public comments on a month of "yellow vest" protests in Paris and other cities in a nationally televised address Monday night. The protests started in opposition to a fuel tax Macron's government had scheduled, but they've since transformed into a movement mobilized against his economic policies, many viewed as tilted toward the wealthy. Macron's decision to scrap the fuel tax did not dampen a fourth weekend protest on Saturday, where about 1,000 of the 136,000 yellow vest protesters were arrested and 71 people injured in Paris. Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said Sunday that Macron "will know how to find the path to the hearts of the French," but there is no "magic wand" to resolve the growing list of yellow vest demands. Peter Weber