In response to Donald Trump’s threat to “jail” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson simply for being opposed to having troops on their streets, Pritzker rightly responded by telling reporters Trump is a “coward,” and saying, “Come and get me.”
But he also gave an interview to the Chicago Tribune in which he raised Trump’s declining mental condition. It was biting but seemed accurate, getting to the core, and certainly raising questions for journalists to ask about:
This is a man who’s suffering dementia,” Pritzker said in a telephone interview with the Tribune. “This is a man who has something stuck in his head. He can’t get it out of his head. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t know anything that’s up to date. It’s just something in the recesses of his brain that is effectuating to have him call out these cities.
“And then, unfortunately, he has the power of the military, the power of the federal government to do his bidding, and that’s what he’s doing.”
This came a day after Democratic Senator Reuben Gallego told reporters something similar, regarding Trump’s engagement on talks about the government shutdown.
And it came a week after Representative Madeline Dean of Pennsylvania told House Speaker Mike Johnson that Trump is “unhinged and unwell,” something Johnson actually didn’t outright deny. This shows the issue is potent, something Republicans see and would be put on the defensive about.
Dean then was brought on TV talk shows to discuss what she meant by her comments. This underscores that the media will only focus on this issue if Democrats raise it, and it’s something that many Americans will recognize—and be concerned about—when it’s highlighted. That’s vital right now as Trump is engaged in even more dangerous actions and rhetoric, while seemingly being used by those in his administration who are taking advantage of his declining mental state. Of course, Democrats should be responding to Trump many different ways. But this is one powerful tool in their arsenal right now.
And it’s good to see that raising the issue is becoming more prevalent, with at least three Democrats within a week focusing on Trump’s mental fitness. It’s not just about Trump making decisions without being mentally sound; it’s about others around him manipulating him and exploiting his increasingly feeble mind.
Trump is listless and half asleep at events happening in mid-morning. He sometimes has no public events for days at a time. There’s the mysterious bruise on his hand that appears and goes, which may or may not be connected to the chronic veinous insufficiency for which he’s been diagnosed and which causes his ankles to swell. These issues may or may not be related to his mental decline, but all of it is a concern and something the public should know about.
Jake Tapper of CNN described a phone text interview with Trump this week that was very odd. First off, Trump doesn’t text or email. He speaks on the phone for interviews, so it was suspicious from the beginning. The topic of discussion was the war in Gaza, and Trump answered in short, often inflammatory, several-word sentences, which gave the impression he wasn’t actually the person on the other end of the phone.
It was a dereliction by Tapper and CNN, which promoted it as an exclusive interview. They actually gave the questions to Trump—or whoever—in writing before the so-called interview. And CNN can’t confirm that Trump was actually texting. Even Tapper seemed dubious.
CNN’s journalistic malpractice aside, what the hell is going on? Why didn’t Trump just call the show? Who is actually running things and making decisions?
As I wrote about over the weekend, we had several examples last week of Trump not knowing key facts, while his administration has also taken major actions without informing him.
Trump had spoken in a weekend conversation with Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, and he alluded to being told by Kotek that the reality in Portland differs from what’s being portrayed to him. He seemed shocked that she wasn’t seeing the fires in Portland that he’s seeing on television. And he continued this week to claim Portland is “burning to the ground” when there are a handful of protesters and no violence. We’ve learned that aides are using five-year-old footage to make Trump think there are fires.
The Trump administration late last week reversed extraordinary counterterrorism cuts to New York City—the number one target of terrorism in this country—of $187 million dollars. The reversal came only after New York Governor Kathy Hochul called Trump, who hadn’t heard about it. No one in his administration informed him of what Homeland Security was doing, and even worse, he didn’t see any of this in the news as DHS publicly defended the cuts.
And, as we now see Trump wavering on the idea of extending subsidies for Obamacare, saying on Monday that he was open to it only to backtrack after Republican leaders talked him down, it adds to Senator Chuck Schumer’s observation that Trump was in the dark about the subsidies from the very beginning.
Schumer, after he came out of the White House meeting over the shutdown, posted about how Trump seemed not to know that Obamacare subsidies were expiring at the end of the year.
Now The Wall Street Journal has confirmed that Trump’s Truth Social post ordering Pam Bondi to indict James Comey and others was actually meant to be a be a private message to Bondi, but he inadvertently publicly posted it.
Someone apparently removed it, but it was too late. It had gotten out, so they put it back up so it wouldn’t look like what it was: a confused man in mental decline posting something publicly that he clearly should have spoken with Bondi about in a meeting or on the phone.
On Sept. 20, Trump meant to send a private message to Attorney General Pam Bondi urging her to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and his other favored targets, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote.
Trump believed he had sent Bondi the message directly, addressing it to “Pam,” and was surprised to learn it was public, the officials said. Bondi grew upset and called White House aides and Trump, who then agreed to send a second post praising Bondi as doing a “GREAT job.”
And let’s not forget the crazy QAnon “medbeds” post Trump shared little over a week ago:
President Donald Trump on Saturday shared an apparently artificially created video of himself promoting a cure-all bed with origins in conspiratorial corners of the internet.
The video, which has since been deleted, was intended to resemble a Fox News segment on the show hosted by the president’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, featured an AI version of Trump promising access to new medical technology. This segment has never aired on the network.
The “medbed” conspiracy theory has spread during recent years in QAnon circles online.
Did Trump actually think this AI version of himself was him, and that he had spoken with Lara Trump about “medbeds” on Fox News—and that they actually exist—and was now sharing the segment, proud of his non-existent accomplishment? That’s the only plausible explanation, especially since it was taken down, likely by someone else in the White House covering up what is bizarre behavior.
Trump is clearly unwell, and people in the White House are manipulating him and making their own power grabs.
Pritzker, Gallego and Dean were right to publicly raise the issue of mental decline. Every Democrat should do exactly that and force the media to put the White House and Trump on the defensive about it.