Trump's Air Force One rant exposed his 'worsening mental unfitness': analyst
“Daily Blast” podcast host Greg Sargent and New Republic contributing editor Meredith Shiner on Tuesday discussed the apparent blind spot the media has for President Donald Trump’s rapidly failing mental faculties.
“On Air Force One, President Donald Trump unleashed a bizarre, angry, rambling rant about the cognitive test he supposedly aced this weekend,” Sargent said. “Worse, he compared himself cognitively to two Democrats who both happen to be nonwhite women. This rant backfired on itself: It revealed his worsening mental unfitness, his naked racism, his effort to normalize his belittling of nonwhite members of Congress and his ongoing attacks on democracy, and more.”
Trump told reporters recently that he aced an IQ test at Walter Reed hospital, which was more likely a test to determine the state of his cognitive decline. In his statement he debased the intelligence of U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas).
“AOC’s low IQ. You give her an IQ test — have her past the exams I decided to take while I was at Walter Reed. I took — that was a very hard, uh — that really — aptitude test, I guess, in a certain way — but they’re cognitive tests,” Trump said. “Let AOC go against Trump. Let Jasmine [Crockett] go against Trump.”
Trump then went on to describe the test, which does carry a resemblance to tests administered to nursing home residents or patients suffering the onset of Alzheimer’s.
“… [t]he first couple of questions are easy. A tiger, an elephant, a giraffe, you know. When you get up to about [Question] 5 or 6, when you get up to [Question 10, 30 and 35, [AOC and Crockett] couldn’t come close to answering any of those questions.”
“I’m reasonably sure AOC and Crockett could do much better on a cognitive test,” said Sargent.
“Donald Trump is a racist, so the idea of women of color being smart is unfathomable to him. … And it should be unacceptable to make that sort of assertion,” said Shiner. “… This is the state exercising racism to the extreme, but also we have to think about the fertile ground that created the condition where that’s OK,” she said, referencing Fox News and right-wing media’s coverage of non-white Americans.
Sargent was alarmed by the U.S. media’s blind spot of Trump’s obvious mental collapse, and what he called the “mad king gone amok” issue, noting Trump’s insane tweets about the city of Portland, Oregon burning down. He also cited Trump’s untrue stories about Tylenol and tales of cutting prescription drug prices “by 1,000 percent or more, which is mathematically impossible.” Not to mention Trump posting on Truth Social his command that his AG prosecute his enemies.
“The contrast between where we are right now, in October 2025, and where we were last year, in 2024, I think is really huge," said Shiner. “And when you think about someone like Jake Tapper, who tried to sell a book on this idea that the mainstream media overlooked his unfitness for office — but then now we’re in this place where you’re not exploring that with this president — you can’t really square that circle.”
But Sargent said he sees an opening for Trump’s opposition in his madness.
“Donald Trump is completely out to lunch — he’s indulging his craziest fantasies on a daily basis. And as a result of that fundamental unfitness, that has created this vacuum for really, really serious fascists — basically, authoritarians — to run the place. And I think there’s a way to connect those cases.”
Read and listen to the podcast at this link.
