He's always said whatever comes into his head and, as he gets more confused, the message gets weirder. His supporters clearly are either not listening, or just don't care. Donald Trump is very confused https://t.co/j4RTzDqbRA
— Prof. Peter Doherty (@ProfPCDoherty) January 24, 2024
An excellent essay, which deserves wider circulation, from Dana Milbank at the Washington Post — “Donald Trump is very confused”: [gift link]
… New Hampshire showed us, beyond all doubt, that Donald Trump is very, very confused…
I went to Trump’s rally on Saturday night in Manchester, where he didn’t address the Haley-Pelosi mix-up but assured his supporters that he “took a cognitive test” and “I aced it.” He has previously boasted of his ability to identify an image of a “whale” on said assessment, but, as The Post’s Ashley Parker and Dan Diamond pointed out, there is no such marine mammal on any version of the test. (Maybe he was being “sarcastic” about the whale, too.)
But I listened carefully to Trump that night — no easy feat because he went on for 100 minutes — and noticed that, even though his text was fed to him through a teleprompter, he told many of the same stories over and over again, repeating some lines almost word for word in the same speech, with no apparent awareness that he had done so…
In fairness, the Trump of four and eight years ago was also plenty erratic. But a closer look at his public performances — his courtroom outbursts and on the stump — suggests the very stable genius is off his game. He’s propped up by a very professional campaign, which he didn’t have before, and more insulated from questions and spontaneous exchanges. Yet he’s still saying and doing the sort of things that, had Biden done them, Republicans would cry: dementia!
“Each drug dealer kills on average 500 people during his or her lifetime,” he informed his audience early in his speech.
“Each dealer is responsible for the deaths during their lives of over 500 people or more,” he informed them late in his speech…
Trump similarly told and retold a tale about Biden’s competence. “He’s a threat to democracy,” Trump said, for “a couple of reasons. But, you know, the first reason why, he’s grossly incompetent.”
“He’s a threat to democracy,” Trump repeated later.
And again, still later: “Joe Biden is a threat to democracy for a number of reasons,” primarily because “he’s grossly incompetent.”
Sounds as though somebody needs a nap.
And it wasn’t just one off night. At a rally the next night, Trump mispronounced the name of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), his devoted ally who had just come to campaign for him in New Hampshire. He mentioned the name of a pollster — his pollster — Tony Fabrizio, with an Italian accent, then asked, “Is he a relation to Al Capone?” The following night, he served up this puzzler: “We are an institute and a powerful death penalty. We will put this on.”
Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: <em>‘Donald Trump is very confused’</em>Post + Comments (120)