Paraphasia, you're hearing it more and more
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) March 16, 2026 at 4:19 PM
It’s a cold-fangled word, but a luxurious sword
This isn’t to be like “ha ha” btw it’s just noting that all this stuff (the searching for words and getting them wrong, the increasing profanity and disinhibition) is happening, & relatively undiscussed because the WHPC is so pumped that trump answers his cell phone sometimes
And like, this was never a titanic intellect, but you’d think it would be a big story that the guy with his finger on the button making insane strategic and diplomatic choices all day every day is mentally and physically decomposing before our eyes
everything in here was obvious two years ago, but better late than never!
Chief WH Correspondent Peter Baker takes up this heavy burden… “Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate” [gift link]:
President Trump’s erratic behavior and extreme comments in recent days and weeks have turbocharged the crazy-like-a-fox-or-just-plain-crazy debate that has followed him on the national political stage for a decade.
A series of disjointed, hard-to-follow and sometimes-profane statements capped by his “a whole civilization will die tonight” threat to wipe Iran off the map last week and his head-spinning attack on the “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” pope on Sunday night have left many with the impression of a deranged autocrat mad with power.
The White House rejected such assessments, saying that Mr. Trump is sharp and keeping his opponents on edge. But the president’s eruptions have raised questions about America’s leadership in a time of war. While the country has had presidents whose capacity came under question before, most recently the octogenarian Joseph R. Biden Jr. as he aged demonstrably before the public’s eyes, never in modern times has the stability of a president been so publicly and forensically debated — and with such profound consequences.
Democrats who have long challenged Mr. Trump’s psychological fitness have issued a fresh chorus of calls to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from power for disability. But it is not just a concern voiced by partisans on the left, late-night comics or mental health professionals making long-distance diagnoses. It can be heard now among retired generals, diplomats and foreign officials. And most strikingly, it can be heard now on the political right among onetime allies of the president.
Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who recently broke with Mr. Trump, advocated using the 25th Amendment, telling CNN that threatening to destroy Iran’s civilization was “not tough rhetoric, it’s insanity.” Candace Owens, the far-right podcaster, called him “a genocidal lunatic.” Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and founder of Infowars, said Mr. Trump “does babble and sounds like the brain’s not doing too hot.”…
The dissent on the right has not extended to Congress, where Republican lawmakers remain publicly loyal to the president, nor has it reached the cabinet, which would have to approve any invocation of the 25th Amendment, rendering that idea moot. But it reflects growing unease among Americans who in recent surveys have increasingly questioned the fitness of Mr. Trump, already the oldest president ever inaugurated, as he approaches his 80th birthday…
Indeed, the situation today eclipses even Nixon. Unlike in the 1970s, “so much of this is playing out in public,” especially with social media and cable television, Mr. Zelizer said. And, he added, “as a president who naturally disregards any guardrails or sense of decorum, Trump feels much freer, even than Nixon, to unleash his inner rage and to act on impulse.”…
Open Thread: It Pains the <em>NYTimes</em> To Report…Post + Comments (196)