U.S. President Donald Trump walks at Newark Liberty International Airport as he travels en route to Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., August 7, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger expressed genuine concern over the mental health of President Donald Trump after another meandering gaffe concerning flagpoles and White House decoration on Wednesday.
“I don't mean to laugh because he is literally the president of the United States and makes key decisions for my four-year-old son's life in the future, our life and everything else. But honestly — and I'm not saying this as a gratuitous hit. I just mean it. Like, if you were sitting down with your uncle or your grandfather or your parents and they were talking like that, you'd start to ask some follow up questions to make sure they were okay,” Kinzinger told CNN anchor Erin Burnett evening.
Earlier that day, Trump launched into a roving conversation that Burnett described as “a little odd,” before playing the footage.
“I donated the flagpoles, one on each side because the White House didn't really have an appropriate American flag. It had a small one on top. We left that, but it didn't have an appropriate American flag,” said Trump, speaking with reporters at the DC scrum.
“And this is a great pole,” Trump continued. “This is the top of the line. It's tapered. This isn't a straight up and down job, which looks terrible, frankly. That's a tapered poll. It’s great. I'm very good at flag poles.”
By the end of the quote, Kinzinger was fighting to stifle his laughter.
“I mean, it's just we're in this weird time where we've become — we've grown numb to this kind of stuff,” said the former Illinois congressman. “The obsession with the tapered flagpole, the, you know, where you land your helicopter is plush. We've become so numb that we're not thinking about it. But if you just if you would transport each of us from 2018 to this moment and play those soundbites, we would think we were in bizarro world or Earth 2, or something, that's not real.”
“And the sad thing is … there are people right now on overseas, on the USS Lincoln that have been there 250 days, that are working their tail off for the American people. And you have a president that doesn't seem to be taking this very seriously,” Kinzinger said, his smile fading. “And that's what breaks my heart, I think, more than anything.”