It takes a special kind of fantasy to keep Trump this deluded: opinion

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a maternal health event in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 11, 2026. REUTERS Evelyn Hockstein

How does a president who has already lost a war he started with a comparatively underpowered nation able to stand before a crowd of hundreds and proclaim — without a single twitch in his face — that he’s winning the war and that the disputed territory will soon be U.S. territory without evidence? Look no further than the pillow-cushioned sprawl of President Donald Trump’s intel service for morons, says New York Ties columnist Jamelle Bouie.

“[Since Harry Truman U.S. presidents have labored to “create new, institutionalized processes designed to get the best and most accurate information available,” said Bouie. “In addition to practical considerations, this has been a way for presidents to combat one of the pathologies of executive authority: a tendency to value one’s own unique insight above all else. Even still, it is immensely difficult for presidents to avoid the trap, if you will, of getting high on their own supply.

But new information courtesy of NY Time authors Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reveal Trump has not simply “junked this process in its entirety — he has set up his White House to affirm his frequently arbitrary instincts above all other considerations.”

“He has insulated himself from opposing views and made internal dissent verboten,” said Bouie. “At no point does Trump receive neutral information; just about everything is tailored to his whims, impulses and mercurial disposition. The result is that he is isolated from reality to the extent that he is practically living in a fairy tale.”

Haberman and Swan describe a Trump who “cannot see beyond the first few steps of any given action and is constantly taken aback” by unforeseen political obstacles like the depletion of the U.S. military’s stock of sophisticated munitions and the deplorable conditions on naval vessels.

Events like these, said Bouie, probably shake the very foundation of an ignorant president pampered by fawning helpers loathe to convey any bad news. Or even just news.

“More likely, he is told what he wants to hear: that America is winning and Iran is on the verge of surrender,” said Bouie.

However, Bouie said much of the destruction of the second Trump administration is self-inflicted, so far, with Trump’s policies and his inept allies having “wrecked the administrative state, undercut science and mired the country in a new Middle East quagmire.”

What happens when something thoroughly unaffiliated with the clown posse roars out of the blue and hits the metaphorical circus tent, he asks.

“There has not yet been an external crisis — the kind of catastrophic event that demands an active and effective leadership. Through their reporting, Haberman and Swan make clear that if and when this country faces such a crisis, both the president and his administration will be caught flat-footed,” Bouie lamented.

“When this happened in Trump’s first term with the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States still had a functional bureaucracy with experts willing and able to provide leadership in the absence of any from the White House,” said Bouie said. “Should we see a similar disaster, we very likely won’t even have that.”

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