President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks to the media on the day of a NATO leaders' summit in Ankara, Turkey, July 8, 2026. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
President Donald Trump's mental and emotional decline is now beginning to cause international incidents, and the world is noticing.
In the morning "Daily Blast" on Wednesday, The New Republic's Greg Sargent spoke with journalist Mark Jacob, who writes the "Stop the Presses" newsletter on Substack, about how the right wing has figured out how to exploit weaknesses in the media.
While many online turn to mock press secretary Katie Zacharia's first press briefing, Kimberly Guilfoyle's firing and the upcoming election, the two men dipped into the startling fake ceasefire that Trump announced over the weekend. It has now become clear that while Trump announced a ceasefire, there wasn't one.
"He’s just getting weirder. And he was weird to start with," said Jacob.
"I mean, he announced the other day that there was an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. And of course, unfortunately—you know, my job partly is to criticize the news media, and a lot of them came out with their 'Trump says' headlines, which they should know better than to do," Jacob explained.
Once reporters finally reached President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine, he made it clear that he hadn't heard anythinga bout it. The Russians currently weren't pausing their attacks on Ukraine.
"And then they asked Trump and said, hey, nobody seems to be following this ceasefire, why did you say you had an agreement? And he responded that he told them that they needed to come to an agreement, and that was enough," said Jacob. "So, he has these bizarre delusions of grandeur, where he thinks he can just kind of magically transform reality into what he thinks it should be."
Jacob said that all of this is being caused by Republicans who "set him up" to feel like he was the king of the world and could control anything with the power of his voice.
"His idea of making a deal was just this thought that everyone had a price. And it is gratifying to see that some people don’t have a price. And also just to see that the lies aren’t working anymore," Jacob added.
He warned that this will likely start a cycle of Trump becoming more dangerous.
"Trump’s weakening power is really good for America. But this is when authoritarians are dangerous," Jacob said. "When they see their powers ebbing and they don’t know why, and all these sycophants who were on their side suddenly disappear on them—this is when they’re really dangerous."
Just in the past five days, Trump has weaponized the Justice Department to go after former aide Cassidy Hutchinson and stage a raid on the D.C. home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) over conspiracy theories that invented crimes they can't prove and are long past the statute of limitations, even if they could charge them.
"They may take—and they’ve got ICE showing up near polling places. I mean, we have to really be vigilant about what’s going on here, and insist on a fair election, and not let them do all the crazy stuff they’ve been doing," Jacob continued to warn.
