Is Trump Finally Cracking Up?
President Trump has shown all the characteristics of cracking up.
There have been ongoing questions raised about Trump’s fitness for office. But Trump’s recent unhinged actions have brought this issue to the forefront.
This week, for example, Trump appeared at a rally in Ohio. When a female protestor was attacked by Trump’s supporters and punched in her face, Trump responded by mocking her weight and claiming, without evidence, that she had been paid to be there.
The President of the United States responded to a woman being punched at his rally by mocking her.
Earlier this week, at a rally in Ohio for Republican Senator Jon Husted, Trump weirdly described looking at Husted’s body, saying “I looked at his ass,” before commenting on his hands and jawline. It was a bizarre performance by any standards for a political speech.
This week, Trump weirdly posted on Truth Social “an AI-generated video of himself wrestling and playing with a tiger, hours after posting real footage of a man being fatally mauled by the animal at a wildlife park in northern England.”
Trump at a campaign rally in Arizona this week bizarrely declared that military information leakers should be shot: “They’re the scum of the earth.”
Then there are the recent cases of Trump making announcements that turn out only to exist in his own mind.
Trump announced this past Sunday that he had obtained an “energy ceasefire” between Ukraine and Russia and that “both parties had agreed.”
President Zelenskyy said the deal “was news to me.” Russia continued to bomb Ukrainian energy sites, and neither side had publicly confirmed the agreement Trump announced.
Trump said this week in Alaska at a campaign rally for Senator Dan Sullivan, according to AP, that “massive” oil, gas and mineral exploration is set to begin in “our new and beautiful Greenland.”
No special exploration rights, however, were granted to the United States in the recent agreement about U.S. bases. There are reportedly no agreements by Greenland or Denmark that support Trump’s claim. Greenland also has had a moratorium on new oil and gas permits since 2021. Once again, Trump’s pronouncement that exploration is set to begin in Greenland exists only in his mind.
Trump may also be breaking under the pressure of his historically bad polls.
A Pew Research Center poll earlier this month showed only 30 percent of the American people approved of the job Trump is doing while 68 percent disapproved. The poll also found that “most Americans (69%) say they have little confidence in Trump to keep his business interests separate from his presidential decision-making.”
A Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month found that Trump’s job approval stood at 32 percent, compared to 65 percent disapproval.
An AP-NORC poll this week shows that concerns about Trump and his family profiting from his presidency are sinking in with the American people.
According to the poll, “about 6 in 10 U.S. adults believe he is either illegally profiting or doing something unethical but not illegal. Only about 2 in 10 think the Republican president is doing nothing wrong, while a similar share say they don’t know enough to say.”
The poll further found that “just over half, 56%, of U.S. adults say Trump has put ‘a lot’ of emphasis on his personal businesses since taking office again, while a similar share, 54%, say this about the business interests of his friends and family. In contrast, only about one-quarter of Americans say he’s prioritized the country as a whole ‘a lot’ since returning to the White House, and even fewer, about 1 in 10, say he’s focused ‘a lot’ on people like them.”
Trump’s never-ending thirst for vengeance and revenge also diverts Trump from serving the American people’s interests. This was most recently shown domestically in the cases of Rep. Ilhan Omar and Cassidy Hutchinson and internationally in the case of President Zelenskyy as Trump continually bends the knee to Putin.
It has become clear to the American people that Trump is far more interested in remaking Washington’s monuments, buildings, and other aspects of the nation’s capital than he is in doing his day job and protecting and advancing their interests.
Trump appears to be more and more unhinged as the days go by.
A Personal Note
Dave Wagner and Allyson Rupp of Dewey Square Group do a terrific job for Democracy 21 in their work with me on this Political Report. Dave provides excellent ideas and suggestions and does a great job in editing my Notes. Allyson does excellent work in putting the rest of the Political Report together and distributing it.
Allyson is leaving Dewey Square this week. I want to thank her for her excellent work and wish her the very best in her new adventures. Samantha Paulino will be taking on Allyson’s responsibilities, and I want to welcome her to this new assignment.
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Fred’s Weekly Note appears on Thursdays in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s newsletter, and other recent editions, here. And subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.
