From what I've read, it sounds like some AP "reporter" was handed a paper from a low-level brainstorming session in which all kinds of crazy ideas were tossed out and rejected, but either the leaker or the AP "reporter" inflated it into something the Trump WH was planning to do. That kind of @#$% probably would have flown unanswered during the Bush Administration, but the Trump Administration is answering and mocking.
Trump & Co. don't need to plant fake stories, because the MSM are buying and publishing/broadcasting their own imaginings and silliness from Prog-insider moles/trolls.
(Edited typos, clarification)