The President's Broken Brain Was on Full Display in Montana
When the Secret Op-Ed Hero mentioned the 25th Amendment in his or her New York Times screed this week, it was an excuse. The anonymous patriot wanted to absolve himself or herself of blame for failing to take real action to stop a president who's quite clearly a few screws short of a hardware store. So the author said invoking the 25th Amendment would cause a "constitutional crisis."
The truth is we're already in one, and those inside the White House who understand the president isn't All There are just trying to squeeze a little bit more out of the deregulation frenzy-and solidify a conservative Supreme Court-while polishing their resumes for their next job in conservative politics once the whole thing blows over.
But President Trump held a rally in Montana last night, and it wasn't an advertisement for his Fitness For Office. This is because he spent large periods of it slurring his words and wildly hopping between disparate topics.
Exhibit A:
You may remember that this is not the first time Trump has been found slurring. Last December, he struggled mightily to finish a speech in which he announced the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel:
This was met with no small reaction on the web, and it rose to Trump's attention. Soon after, Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury kicked off a maelstrom of speculation about his psychological well-being. In response, he got a full physical exam-including a cognitive assessment-from White House physician Ronny Jackson in January, which found he was in "excellent" health across the board. Trump even mentioned Jackson last night:
Trump liked Jackson so much he eventually nominated him to head up the Department of Veterans Affairs, a decision he essentially made unilaterally, before Jackson could be vetted by the White House. The subsequent vetting revealed that Jackson was not an ideal candidate for, well, any job in government. Former colleagues told Senate investigators he oversaw a hostile work environment, drank on the job, and was handing out prescription meds like candy. It should be noted this also went on during the Obama administration, where he was beloved by senior officials.
Apparently, that's no coincidence: Jackson was hell to work for, but was a relentless suck-up to his superiors. He went to great lengths to ingratiate himself, and Trump clearly loved him. (He has ranted about Jackson's supposedly unfair treatment many times, including in a Fox & Friends cameo so unhinged the hosts basically hung up on him.) The key thing is whether this calls into question, say, Jackson's finding that Trump was one pound below the BMI criteria for "obese." Or that cognitive test. Did Jackson just give the president the results he wanted?
Trump continued ranting about Jackson last night, at times skipping far enough down the winding corridors of his own resentment complex that even his most committed supporters struggled to understand, looking on silently:
This happened a number of times. He slurred through a millionth rant about how he won the election two years ago:
Mr. President...what? Yet he seemed simultaneously aware of the mechanisms of what's going on:
And then there's this:
Later, Trump suggested his opponents say he's "lost it," but, he continued, how can he give a rally speech for an hour and a half without notes if he's lost it? If Trump had ever ridden the subway he wouldn't need to ask whether someone could rant for an hour without notes. It was all a prelude, though, to the president comparing all this speechifying to...the Gettysburg Address:
Many people are saying the Fake News CNN covered Lincoln very unfairly! It's important to remember this is the dumbest time in history, but also that the people around the president enabling him to continue in office are betraying the American republic and endangering the world. Even if they write op-eds.
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