SATURDAY: Has it been the ketamine talking?

SATURDAY, MAY 31, 2025

Return of the transgender mice: Yesterday, the stumblebum appeared in the Oval again, this time for a valedictory.

Was it just the ketamine talking? We have no way of knowing. That said, he Fox News Channel's Peter Doocy kept trying to ask a question—and the stumblebum kept interrupting:

DOOCY (5/30/25): The president mentioned that you like to deal with all the slings and arrows during your time at DOGE. There's this—

MUSK (interrupting): Some people—some of the media organizations in this room are the slingers. (Chuckles)

DOOCY: Well, so there's a New York Times report today that accuses you of blurring the line between—

MUSK (interrupting): Oh wait, wait! New York Times? Is that the same publication that’s got a Pulitzer Prize for false reporting on the Russiagate? Is it the same organization?

DOOCY: I gotta check my Pulitzer counter.

MUSK: I think it is! I think it is!

PRESIDENT TRUMP: It is.

MUSK: I think the judge just ruled against New York Times for their lies about the Russiagate hoax. And that they might have to give back that Pulitzer Prize. That New York Times? Let’s move on!

Poor Doocy! He never got to ask the question he had been planning to ask. To watch the stumblebum shut Doocy down, just can click for the C-Span videotape, then click ahead to minute 17.

Credit where due! The stumblebum Musk was ready with a classic non-answer answer. Was it just the ketamine talking? We have no way of knowing.

Doocy was apparently trying to ask about a belated report about Musk's alleged drug use—the belated report which had appeared online, that very day, at the New York Times. 

(It's in today's print editions.)

Doocy was apparently going to ask about that report. But as he tried to ask his question, the stumblebum kept breaking in. So it goes, in what may be the most stumblebum of all possible worlds. 

(For a report from Mediaite, with videotape included, you can just click here.)

Full disclosure! The New York Times was late to this game—to reporting about Musk's reported misuse of various drugs, with ketamine first among equals. Such reports had appeared in major publications dating to August 2023—but with this, as with so many phenomena, the Times had taken a standard approach:

Nothing to look at! Just move along! 

 So our greatest newspaper had said.

Is there something to look at there? We can't necessarily tell you. But given the various lunatic thing this manifest stumblebum has posted and said, who wouldn't have wondered, speaking colloquially if this nutcase might not be on drugs?

Who wouldn't have asked that question? You can start with the New York Times. After that. you can move ahead to the major stars we're taught to love on MSNBC.

Doocy never got go to ask his question. Meanwhile, the other journalists in the room let Musk's stonewall stand.

There's always a journalist willing to ask a totally different question. We'll return to Musk's "Russiagate" dodge at the end of this report.

Yesterday, the stumblebum conduct was general over the Oval Office. Eventually, the sitting president managed to spew this set of remarks about all the waste and fraud the stumblebum's engineers found.

Warning! This is all blatantly bogus:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (5/30/25): I can say it’s $2 billion to Stacey Abrams and her environmental movement. There was $100 in the account and all of a sudden they found $2 billion in the account. And I assume that’s being looked at. I don’t know. I’m not sure. I assume it’s being looked at. 

Think of that—$2 billion! 

And then he will tell you there’s another one over there for $20 billion being spent on another environmental. $20 billion. Not $20 million, a lot. Not $200,000, which is a lot, so think of it in her case. You have $100, and now all of a sudden, she gets hit with an infusion of $2 billion just before I take office.

$20 million for Arab Sesame Street in the Middle East. Nobody knows what that’s all about, nobody’s been able to find it.

$8 million for making mice transgender. So they spent $8 million on making mice transgender, and those are better than many of the others. I could sit here all day and read things just like that. We have other things to do.

We don't doubt it! We believe the sitting president could "sit there all day" making such bogus assertions. Bogus assertions are his stock in trade, just as it has been with the possible ketamine kid.

Peak bogus! According to the sitting president. DOGE wiped out $8 million spent for creating transgender mice! Beyond that, $20 billion—with a B—had gone to Stacey Abrams! Also, there was $20 million for an Arab Sesame Street!

"Nobody knows what that’s all about," the sitting president falsely said.

In this report for Mediaite, Alex Griffing caught only one of those three bogus claims. It's been corrected a million times, but the president just keeps saying it:

Trump Praises Musk For Ending Studies on ‘Making Mice Transgender’–Which Were Actually Asthma and Cancer Research

President Donald Trump was joined by Elon Musk on Friday in the Oval Office for a farewell presser as Musk exits his role leading DOGE.

Trump began the event with some praise for Musk’s work in the administration and eventually listed off some of the savings DOGE has claimed to have made for the federal government—including one widely debunked claim about “transgender mice.”

And so on from there. It's been debunked a million times, but the president just keeps saying it as journalists look on.

That said, the claim about Stacey Abrams has been thoroughly shot down too. For the Washinton Post's four-Pinocchio Fact Checker report, you can just click this. 

(Headline: "Trump’s false claim that Stacey Abrams headed a group that got $1.9 billion.")

Regarding that Arab Sesame Street, was it really waste, fraud and abuse? Does no one know what it's all about?

To see that bogus claim assessed, you can just click here. 

(Headline: "Why the Arabic ‘Sesame Street’ and Other Cuts Are Not Really About Fraud.") Hint—it was all about "soft power.")

Dr. King often pictured the prophesied day when justice would "roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." In our day, bullshit and these lunatic statements roll down out of the Oval Office—sometimes from a struggling person like Elon Musk, routinely from the nation's sitting president.

Is something wrong with those two men? If so, that constitutes a tragic, but also a destructive, loss of human potential. But as this process has unfolded, the New York Times has persistently signaled this:

There's nothing to look at here! Just keep moving along!

Back to Musk's stifle of the Fox News Channel's Doocy:

Was something wrong with the New York Times' reporting about what Musk called "the Russiagate hoax?" Everything is always possible! On the other hand, this:

Jointly with the Washington Post, the Times was awarded a Pulitzer in 2018 for its reporting on that topic. The president is suing the Pulitzer committee about that—but then again, who isn't the sitting president suing at the present time?

Was something wrong with the Times' reporting? Two years after the Pulitzer was awarded, the Senate Intelligence Committee, with Marco Rubio in charge, released a sprawling report about that very topic. Click here for the AP report:

Trump campaign’s Russia contacts ‘grave’ threat, Senate says

The Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian intelligence services during the 2016 presidential election posed a “grave” counterintelligence threat, a Senate panel concluded Tuesday as it detailed how associates of Donald Trump had regular contact with Russians and expected to benefit from the Kremlin’s help.

The nearly 1,000-page report, the fifth and final one from the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee on the Russia investigation, details how Russia launched an aggressive effort to interfere in the election on Trump’s behalf. It says the Trump campaign chairman had regular contact with a Russian intelligence officer and that other Trump associates were eager to exploit the Kremlin’s aid, particularly by maximizing the impact of the disclosure of Democratic emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers.

The report is the culmination of a bipartisan probe that produced what the committee called “the most comprehensive description to date of Russia’s activities and the threat they posed.” The investigation spanned more than three years as the panel’s leaders said they wanted to thoroughly document the unprecedented attack on U.S. elections.

The findings, including unflinching characterizations of furtive interactions between Trump associates and Russian operatives, echo to a large degree those of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and appear to repudiate the Republican president’s claims that the FBI had no basis to investigate whether his campaign was conspiring with Russia.

[...]

Several Republicans on the panel submitted “additional views” to the report, saying it should state more explicitly that Trump’s campaign did not collude with Russia. They say that while the report shows the Russian government “inappropriately meddled” in the election, “then-candidate Trump was not complicit.”

The panel’s acting GOP chairman, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, signed on to that statement but the chairman who led the investigation, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, did not. Burr stepped aside earlier this year as the FBI was examining his stock sales. Another Republican committee member, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, also did not sign on to the GOP statement.

Was "Russiagate" a hoax? That's what Musk vaguely claimed, for perhaps the ten millionth time, yesterday in the Oval—thereby finding a way to duck the ketamine report.

Was that whole thing a hoax? The children say that every day on the Fox News Channel. But uh-oh:

The Republican-led Senate intelligence committee reported that Russia did, in fact, "launch an aggressive effort to interfere in the election on Trump’s behalf." Marco Rubio was the acting chairman of the Republican-led committee which issued that report.

“Then-candidate Trump was not complicit?" We don't know if that assessment was or wasn't accurate. For the record, Rubio signed on to that assertion. Other Republicans did not. 

Everyone knows about thar report, except the millions of people who watch the Fox News Channel. Also, except the people who saw Musk interrupting Doocy yesterday in the Oval.

From there, the garbage flowed like a mighty stream as journalists silently watched.

Has something been wrong with President Trump? With the manifest stumblebum Musk?

We've been using the "stumblebum" language because that is the most accurate way to describe the man's ongoing conduct. That's the accurate, descriptive term for his man's persistent conduct.

He has said that Hitler didn't do it. He has said that Senator Kelly, the former astronaut, is in fact a traitor. 

There's almost no stupid thing he hasn't said. But the Times has refused to react, as have the stars we're taught to love at MSNBC. 

If something is wrong with these powerful men, that is, of course, a human tragedy. But it's also a dangerous, destructive situation, and the Times keep refusing to act. 

They need to speak to appropriate specialists about why this destructive conduct just keeps occurring. Could it be the ketamine talking? Could it be the sociopathy? 

Could it be a different "psychopathology?" Could it maybe be time to ask?

No, Virginia! There were no transgender mice. There was no $2 billion handed to Stacey Abrams.

Also, there weren't as many as twenty million people—average age, 150!—receiving Social Security checks. That was a statement of total madness—but as Trump and Musk kept making that lunatic statement, the Times kept taking a dive.

Children, there were no transgender mice—but there was an assault by the Russians.

Something seems to be wrong with these men, and these men are very powerful. No modern nation can expect to function with people like this repeatedly behaving this way.

It's time for the disordered people at the New York Times to act. It's time to call a spade a spade—to go ahead and report straight out that something is plainly quite wrong.

Full disclosure: The New York Times will never do that. Neither will Rachel Maddow or Lawrence, and neither will Chris Hayes. They'll never interview appropriate specialists to ask what this conduct might mean.

Dearest darlings, use you heads! It's as we've told you for many years. It simply isn't done!

FRIDAY: Has something been wrong with Elon Musk?

FRIDAY, MAY 30, 2025

Two portraits in the Times: In this morning's report, we made a fleeting reference to Elon Musk's (long acknowledged) ketamine use. We hadn't yet seen the profile of Musk which is now online at the New York Times.

As noted in the Times report, ketamine can have valid medical uses—but ketamine can also be abused. This is how the news report starts in the New York Times:

On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama

As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according to people familiar with his activities.

Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.

It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.

He traveled with jagged little pills, according to this report. 

In our view, it would have been better editing to say that Musk seemed to "gesture like a Nazi" at the inaugural event in question. We would have made that edit. 

That said, the new report goes into substantial detail about Musk's alleged drug use, generally according to people who go unnamed. One passage, for example, says this:

Mr. Musk had been using ketamine often, sometimes daily, and mixing it with other drugs, according to people familiar with his consumption. The line between medical use and recreation was blurry, troubling some people close to him.

He also took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms at private gatherings across the United States and in at least one other country, according to those who attended the events.

The Food and Drug Administration has formally approved the use of ketamine only as an anesthetic in medical procedures. Doctors with a special license may prescribe it for psychiatric disorders like depression. But the agency has warned about its risks, which came into sharp relief after the death of the actor Matthew Perry. The drug has psychedelic properties and can cause dissociation from reality. Chronic use can lead to addiction and problems with bladder pain and control.

"The drug can cause dissociation from reality?" Does that, or does that not, sound like Elon Musk?

 (Full disclosure: Two months after Musk's possible Nazi salute, he reposted a message on X which said, “Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Public sector employees did.”) 

Hitler didn't do it! It was the bureaucrats! So it went with the person described in that news report, but also in this beautifully composed new column by Michelle Goldberg:

Elon Musk’s Legacy Is Disease, Starvation and Death

There is an Elon Musk post on X, his social media platform, that should define his legacy. “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” he wrote on Feb. 3. He could have “gone to some great parties. Did that instead.”

The column starts with a punishing headline. But so said this weirdly reckless man, one of the world's biggest stumblebums and one of the era's most uncaring public figures.

Let's hope that Musk was wrecked on drugs! That would at least present a recognizable reason for his endlessly error-riddled behaviors and for his endless lack of concern.

Did this guy ever have the slightest idea what he was actually doing? Continuing directly from above, Goldberg offers this:

Musk’s absurd scheme to save the government a trillion dollars by slashing “waste, fraud and abuse” has been a failure. The Department of Government Efficiency claims it’s saved $175 billion, but experts believe the real number is significantly lower. Meanwhile, according to the Partnership for Public Service, which studies the federal work force, DOGE’s attacks on government personnel—its firings, re-hirings, use of paid administrative leave and all the associated lack of productivity—could cost the government upward of $135 billion this fiscal year, even before the price of defending DOGE’s actions in court. Musk’s rampage through the bureaucracy may not have created any savings at all, and if it did, they were negligible.

There is one place, however, where Musk, with the help of his minions, achieved his goals. He did indeed shred the United States Agency for International Development. Though a rump operation is now operating inside the State Department, the administration says that it has terminated more than 80 percent of U.S.A.I.D. grants. Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year. That is what Musk’s foray into politics accomplished.

White House officials deny that their decimation of U.S.A.I.D. has had fatal consequences. At a hearing in the House last week, Democrats confronted Secretary of State Marco Rubio with my colleague Nicholas Kristof’s reporting from East Africa, documenting suffering and death caused by the withdrawal of aid. Rubio insisted no such deaths have happened, but people who’ve been in the field say he’s either lying or misinformed.

We can't vouch for the perfect accuracy of any of those figures. Having said that, we'll ask you this:

Aside from a fellow like Rubio, can anyone swear that the estimate by Brooke Nichols is actually wrong?

We hope that Musk was stoned on ketamine, with an attendant loss of connection to reality. That would help explain how someone who once built several major companies could be such a shipwreck today.

His stumblebum conduct was on full display throughout the course of his sojourn inside the government. But as with the bizarre behaviors of President Trump, so too here:

Again and again, over and over, Blue America's major news orgs seemed to feel that they must look away.

Today's report in the Times is hardly the first in which associates of Musk were quoted voicing concern about his drug use. On April 3, we linked you to three such reports—to major reports in The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker and The Atlantic over the past several years.

As we noted, those reports generated zero discussion within Blue America's upper-end press and pundit corps. As with the current president's endless array of peculiar statements and clams, so too here:

There was nothing to look at! Move right along! There was nothing to see here! 

So our stars perhaps seemed to say.

Have Elon Musk's chaotic cuts "already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children?"

We can't vouch for any such number. Having said that, we can ask you this:

Have our major organs been up to the task of even pretending to care? 

THE QUESTIONS: Is something wrong with President Trump?

FRIDAY, MAY 30, 2025 

Our favorites aren't going to ask: As we noted not long ago, the leading authority on the topic doesn't like the term "mental illness."

It prefers a slightly less hurtful term. Its lengthy discussion of the complex topic starts exactly like this:

Mental disorder

A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is also characterized by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior, often in a social context. Such disturbances may occur as single episodes, may be persistent, or may be relapsing–remitting. There are many different types of mental disorders, with signs and symptoms that vary widely between specific disorders. A mental disorder is one aspect of mental health.

The causes of mental disorders are often unclear. Theories incorporate findings from a range of fields. Disorders may be associated with particular regions or functions of the brain. Disorders are usually diagnosed or assessed by a mental health professional...

And so on, at length, from there.

The authority prefers the term "mental disorder." Whatever you want to call it, the authority says that the phenomenon in question can "cause" (or simply be associated with?) "significant distress or impairment of personal functioning." 

As such, the syndrome in question is routinely involved in a tragic loss of productive human functioning. You can use the name you prefer, but the consequences are routinely tragic.

As far as we know, "mental illness" isn't the same thing as "cognitive decline." Here, for example, is the way the leading authority starts its treatment of the latter condition:

Cognitive impairment

Cognitive impairment is an inclusive term to describe any characteristic that acts as a barrier to the cognition process or different areas of cognition. Cognition, also known as cognitive function, refers to the mental processes of how a person gains knowledge, uses existing knowledge, and understands things that are happening around them using their thoughts and senses. Cognitive impairment can be in different domains or aspects of a person's cognitive function including memory, attention span, planning, reasoning, decision-making, language (comprehension, writing, speech), executive functioning, and visuospatial functioning. The term cognitive impairment covers many different diseases and conditions and may also be symptom or manifestation of a different underlying condition. Examples include impairments in overall intelligence (as with intellectual disabilities), specific and restricted impairments in cognitive abilities (such as in learning disorders like dyslexia), neuropsychological impairments (such as in attention, working memory or executive function), or it may describe drug-induced impairment in cognition and memory.

[...]

Cognitive impairments may be caused by many different factors including environmental factors or injuries to the brain (e.g., traumatic brain injury), neurological illnesses, or mental disorders. While more common in elderly people, not all people who are elderly have cognitive impairments....Stroke, dementia, depression, schizophrenia, substance abuse, brain tumors, malnutrition, brain injuries, hormonal disorders, and other chronic disorders may result in cognitive impairment with aging. Cognitive impairment may also be caused by a pathology in the brain. Examples include Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, HIV/AIDS-induced dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, and Huntington’s disease.

And so on from there. Any such loss of cognitive function is, of course, a human tragedy. That said, though cognitive impairment may be "caused by mental disorders" in some cases, cognitive decline, in and of itself, is not the same thing as "mental illness," at least as best we can tell.

We mention this as a way of noting what President Trump did last night. All in all, we'd be inclined to put it this way:

For whatever reason, there he went again!

The story starts with Wednesday's (unanimous) ruling by a three-judge panel of the little-known U.S. Court of International Trade. As it turns out, the three judges are charter members of the deep state, even though one was named to the court by President Trump himself.

(One of the other judges was named to the court by President Reagan. The third was named by Barack Hussein Obama himself, with the emphasis frequently placed on the gentleman's middle name.)

Uh-oh! The three-judge panel ruled that President Trump's sweeping imposition of tariffs has been, in a word, illegal.  

(For the record, the greatness of tariffs sems to be an idée fixe—a "fixed idea"—with the current president. According to the leading authority, the term " idée fixe" doesn't appear in the current DSM, but it has long been a part of psychological reasoning and analysis.)

Three out of three judges agreed—large parts of the president's scattershot behavior have also been illegal. This ruling had been expected for some time, but in response to this unanimous ruling, there he went again!

Last evening, the president offered a lengthy post on his Truth Social site. For whatever reason, the president often waits for the midnight hour to offer his most furious posts. This one came early, at 8:10 p.m.:

You can read the whole thing here. 

You can read the whole thing there! In an attempt to "simplify, simplify," we'll offer only the excerpt posted by Mediaite in this samizdat.

Here's the way that excerpt starts, with that site's headline included:

Trump Turns on Conservative Group’s ‘Sleazebag’ Leader Who Recommended Judges: ‘Probably Hates America’

[...]

PRESIDENT TRUMP (5/29/25): ...Where do these initial three Judges come from? How is it possible for them to have potentially done such damage to the United States of America? Is it purely a hatred of “TRUMP?” What other reason could it be? 

That's the way the furious excerpt starts. It has to be a hatred of TRUMP! What else could it possibly be?

That's the way the excerpt starts. Here's the full excerpt from Mediaite, though this is only part of a much longer, furious attempt at discussion:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (5/29/25): ...Where do these initial three Judges come from? How is it possible for them to have potentially done such damage to the United States of America? Is it purely a hatred of “TRUMP?” What other reason could it be? I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges. I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real “sleazebag” named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions. He openly brags how he controls Judges, and even Justices of the United States Supreme Court—I hope that is not so, and don’t believe it is! In any event, Leo left The Federalist Society to do his own “thing.” I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations. This is something that cannot be forgotten!

New to Washington, he'd been mugged by areal sleazebag! Presumably, that explains how this very stable genius could have named a judge who took part in Wednesday's diabolical ruling.

The lengthy, nutty imitation of "discussion" continues on from there. At his point, we turn again to one of the two basic questions we've offered this week:

Is it possible that something is wrong the current sitting president?

Is something wrong with President Trump? If so, that would of course represent a tragic loss of human potential. 

Really though, riddle us this—is something wrong with this sitting president? That's the second of the two basic questions we've been floating this week:

The two basic questions:
Was something wrong with President Biden when he sat in the Oval Office?

Is something wrong with President Trump today?

At present, many people have agreed on the answer to that first question. It appears that something really was wrong with President Biden, even as he sat in the Oval Office. Most people have agreed that this situation became obvious at a fateful presidential debate on June 27, 2024.

Many people have settled on that idea. They have agreed that some type of cognitive impairment became apparent for all to see at that fateful debate.

Journalists now largely agree on the answer to that first question. They also agree on this:

To this day, they agree that the second question must never be asked or discussed.

The New York Times? The Washington Post? Rachel Maddow? Possibly even Jake Tapper?

Everywhere he looked in 1937, FDR said he saw "one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." Everywhere we look today, we see a collection of high-end journalists who have agree that a certain blindingly obvious question simply mustn't be asked.

They refuse to answer that question. In fact, they refuse to ask:

Something was wrong with President Biden. Is something wrong with President Trump? 

If so, that represents a tragic loss of human potential. But is something actually wrong?

In her bestselling 2020 book, the president's niece—Mary L. Trump, PhD—gave her assessment of what is wrong with her uncle. She didn't speak of cognitive decline. As we've noted again and again, she offered this instead:

Prologue

[...]

None of the Trump siblings emerged unscathed from my grandfather’s sociopathy and my grandmother’s illnesses, both physical and psychological, but my uncle Donald and my father, Freddy, suffered more than the rest. In order to get a complete picture of Donald, his psychopathologies, and the meaning of his dysfunctional behavior, we need a thorough family history.

In the last three years, I’ve watched as countless pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have kept missing the mark, using phrases such as “malignant narcissism” and “narcissistic personality disorder” in an attempt to make sense of Donald’s often bizarre and self-defeating behavior. I have no problem calling Donald a narcissist—he meets all nine criteria as outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)—but the label gets us only so far.

[...]

Does Donald have other symptoms we aren’t aware of? Are there other disorders that might have as much or more explanatory power? Maybe. A case could be made that he also meets the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, which in its most severe form is generally considered sociopathy but can also refer to chronic criminality, arrogance, and disregard for the rights of others...

The fact is, Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests that he’ll never sit for.

Mary L. Trump, PhD, is a trained clinical psychologist. That said, the fact that she offered that assessment that doesn't mean that her assessment is accurate.

We can't tell you if her assessment was correct. We can tell you this:

Everyone from the New York Times on down—and yes, that includes Rachel Maddow—has agreed to ignore, to disappear, what the president's niece said in her best-selling book.  They've agreed to disappear that assessment.

Their bosses have told them not to discuss it, and the various cable stars have done what their bosses ordered. The result of this is obvious:

To this very day, that second question has barely been asked. 

Is something wrong with President Trump? If so, it's a tragic loss of human potential, and it should be treated as such.

(We've praised Mary Trump for teaching us to pity the badly treated child even as she tried to warn us about the dangers of the disordered adult.)

That said, if something is wrong with President Trump, it almost surely isn't the same thing that was wrong with President Biden. Almost surely, a different problem obtains—one that people like TV's Chris Hayes aren't willing to talk about.

Sad! "Mental illness" is off limits for these prominent boys and girls. "Cognitive decline" is not. 

For that reason, they keep suggesting that "cognitive decline" is also the current president's basic problem. We'll guess that that's a dodge.

As of June 2024, President Biden had long since begun presenting with a problem which is quite familiar to many Americans. He'd been presenting with something that looked like "cognitive decline."

By way of contrast, the problem which President Trump may be presenting may, in fact, involve issues of "mental illness" / mental disorder." For better or worse, the men and women of our upper-end press corps have agreed, for the past sixty years, that such possibilities mustn't be discussed with respect to the behaviors or states of mind of the nation's most powerful people.

Many of our journalists are speaking now about President Biden's apparent cognitive decline. It's completely appropriate for them to do so.

On MSNBC, most of the TV stars are still avoiding this topic. That brings us to the pseudo-discussion staged by Chris Hayes Tuesday evening's edition of All In.

Hayes was joined by a pair of stooges as he staged his short pseudo-discussion. As we noted yesterday, he started off like this:

HAYES (5/27/25): If we're going to have a conversation about the mental acuity of a recent president, it does seem a little weird to be focusing exclusively on the last one, and not to also include the one who blasted out this typically, truly insane, all-caps social media screed yesterday...

Sad! In the beginning was the end. Already, any serious hope for clarity had already been lost.

We're sorry, but no! The problem which seems to have afflicted President Biden does, in fact, seem to involve a matter of "mental acuity." In line, for example, with Mary Trump's book, the problem which seems to afflict President Trump doesn't seem to be that:

It isn't a question of mental acuity. In this case, it's a tragic question of "mental disorder"—a question of possible "mental illness."

Chris Hayes seems to be too smart not to know that. Many other high-end journalists may not be that smart.

We're not going to walk you through the imitation of a (short) discussion staged by Hayes this Tuesday night.  It turned into an enormously empty pseudo-discussion—an imitation of life.

Our nation has been played this way ever since President Trump's unusual behavior first appeared on the scene. Discussions of possible "mental illness" have long been verboten. In the face of President Trump's apparent disorder, children have (almost) all agreed to play that unhelpful game.

As a result, we have a sitting president who goes before Congress and says that upwards of twenty million long-dead people are receiving Social Security checks. We have a president who still crazily rants, late at night, about the Clintons' many murders.

Our president says that Barack Hussein Obama should face a military tribunal. He's still insisting that the 2020 election was rigged—that the 2020 election was rigged in a way he won't describe.

When Candidate Harris attracted a large crowd at an event, he offered a Truth Social post which claimed that no one was actually there! And now, we're handed this latest lengthy rant, about the way his own appointee has ruled that his recent conduct has. in fact, been illegal.)

We have a president who offered the crazy post we've excerpted above. This goes on ad on, then on and on, and the stooges continue to agree that they mustn't ask the obvious question about why he persistently does this.

Last night's crazy tweet will likely be ignored by the New York Times. They could report and discuss this recurrent strange behavior, but it simply isn't done.

The Times took a dive on "Knucklegate"—on the crazy claim he broadcast about Kilmar Abrego Garcia. More recently, the Times took a dive on the president's inexcusably crazy post about the Clintons' many murders.

The New York Times isn't going to go there! But neither are wealthy TV stars like Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow. 

Is something wrong with President Trump? Also, is something wrong with Elon Musk, or was that just the ketamine talking?

Is something wrong with Robert Kennedy? Was Tucker Carlson really attacked by demons as he slept? The endlessly timorous New York Times took a dive on that one too!

Long ago, back before Trump, we started telling you this:

It's all anthropology now.

By that, we meant that our flailing nation almost surely wouldn't be finding its way out of this mess. All that was left was the need to describe the way our vastly limited species works when experiments in rational conduct reach their inevitable end.

Is something wrong with President Trump? Last night, there he went again, with his latest nutty post.

Is something wrong with President Trump? If so, that's a human tragedy—but of one thing you can be certain:

Rachel Maddow, Blue America's favorite, isn't going to ask!

THURSDAY: What happens to deficits if the bill passes?

THURSDAY, MAY 29, 2025

All in all, don't ask: As you know, President Trump's budget bill passed the House in a landslide vote. The vote was as overwhelming 215 yeas versus 214 no's.

It still has to make its way through the Senate. We don't know if it will.

We can give you a rough idea of what annual deficits would be like under current existing law. It's as we showed you yesterday—if no changes are made to current law, future deficits are projected to look like this:

Projected federal deficits, FY 2025-2029
2025: $1.9 trillion

[...]

2035: $2.7 trillion

Those are projected annual revenue shortfalls—projected annual deficits. In written form, using actual words, the picture looks like this:

The Budget Outlook / Deficits

In CBO’s projections, the federal budget deficit in fiscal year 2025 is $1.9 trillion. Adjusted to exclude the effects of shifts in the timing of certain payments, the deficit grows to $2.7 trillion by 2035. It amounts to 6.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025 and drops to 5.2 percent by 2027 as revenues increase faster than outlays. In later years, outlays increase faster than revenues, on average. In 2035, the adjusted deficit equals 6.1 percent of GDP—significantly more than the 3.8 percent that deficits have averaged over the past 50 years.

As we noted yesterday, those are the large annual deficits which Paul Krugman has recently called "unsustainable." Over the next ten (or eleven) years, annual deficits are projected to start at something like $2 trillion and to rise from there.

We're so old that we can remember when major newspapers devoted more space to budget data than they do today. We think back to 1999 and 2000, for example—back to the endless attempts to decide how much revenue Candidate Bush's tax cut proposal would cost the federal treasury over its first ten years.

Quoting Harper Lee, "A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer" back then. There were no distractions by President Trump to chase around and attempt to decipher. There was much more time for getting confused about the minutia of budget proposals!

Journalists would report more budget numbers back then. Today, you're likely to read something like what you see below about the effect of the proposed budget bill on the size of our future deficits:

Pivoting From Tax Cuts to Tariffs, Trump Ignores Economic Warning Signs

[...]

In report after report, economists this week predicted that Mr. Trump’s signature tax package could add well over $3 trillion to the national debt. Some found that the measure is unlikely to deliver substantial economic growth, and could enrich the wealthiest Americans while harming the poorest, millions of whom could soon lose access to federal aid for food and health insurance.

Also this:

When it comes to budget math, ‘D.C.-style’ actually means ‘honest’

[...]

The CBO does in fact project that Trump’s bill will add $3.8 trillion to the federal debt over the next decade. (It also estimates that the bill’s resulting “increase in the resources” provided to U.S. households will “not be evenly distributed”: Resources “would decrease for households in the lowest decile (tenth) of the income distribution, whereas resources would increase for households in the highest decile.”)

The first passage comes from the New York Times. The second passage comes from the Washington Post.  

Each passage talks about what the budget bill would "add to the national debt." The Times didn't bother with stating a time frame. The Post cited the standard ten years.

Friend, consider this about those very familiar presentations:

If you have a rough idea of how big our annual deficits got to be during Covid, you might even think that deficits won't be so terrible over the next ten years! You could almost think that deficits will only average something like $300=380 billion per year over the next ten years, thereby adding something like $3.8 trillion to the accumulated national debt over the course of that decade.

That isn't what those passages mean. What they mean is this:

They mean that you have to start with the giant deficits which have already been projected—annual deficits ranging from something like $2 trillion per year up to $2.7 trillion by 2035.

You have to start with those giant deficits, then add on even more deficit spending! That $3.8 trillion—on average, $380 billion per year—is the amount the GOP bill would add to those giant annual deficits over the course of the next ten years. That's the amount the GOP bill would add to the deficits which have already been projected—deficits which already have us on an "unsustainable path."

Keeping it simple:

At present, the deficit for 2035 is projected to be $2.7 trillion. If the GOP budget bill passes, that projection would jump to something like $3.1 trillion. On average, the bill would have an effect like that over each of the next ten years.

In short, the GOP bill wouldn't balance the budget. It wouldn't even reduce the size of our projected federal deficits.

It would make those annual deficits larger than currently projected. Instead of adding a mountain of debt, we'll be adding a larger mountain.

You can think of that however you wish. We offer two closing points:

Krugman says the situation is already unsustainable as matters currently stand. The budget bill which is routinely said to be "beautiful" makes the projected situation worse.

Journalists used to try to explain these matters. Today, as journalists chase those endless distractions around, days like those are gone.

Tomorrow: A tiny bit of found humor

THE QUESTIONS: He almost seemed to be raising The Question!

THURSDAY, MAY 29, 2025

Quickly, his segment fizzled: Was something wrong with President Biden, even as he sat in the Oval Office?

Increasingly, it's widely assumed that the answer seems to be yes. Increasingly, it's widely assumed that the former president was already the victim of some type of cognitive decline—of something resembling some form of "dementia"—even as he sat in the White House and decided to seek re-election.

At this site, we're not like the rest of the kids! If someone has suffered a cognitive loss, we don't react with vast surprise when such people display limited cognitive powers. 

We don't rush to blame such people for their loss of cognitive power.  We regard it as a (familiar) human tragedy—as a tragic loss of human capability and potential.

That said, is it possible that something was wrong with President Biden? In early September 2023, David Ignatius may already have believed that the answer was yes when he wrote this surprising column in the Washington Post:

President Biden should not run again in 2024

Joe Biden launched his candidacy for president in 2019 with the words “we are in the battle for the soul of this nation.” He was right. And though it wasn’t obvious at first to many Democrats, he was the best person to wage that fight. He was a genial but also shrewd campaigner for the restoration of what legislators call “regular order.”

Since then, Biden has had a remarkable string of wins. He defeated President Donald Trump in the 2020 election; he led a Democratic rebuff of Trump’s acolytes in the 2022 midterms; his Justice Department has systematically prosecuted the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that Trump championed and, now, through special counsel Jack Smith, the department is bringing Trump himself to justice.

What I admire most about President Biden is that in a polarized nation, he has governed from the center out, as he promised in his victory speech. With an unexpectedly steady hand, he passed some of the most important domestic legislation in recent decades. In foreign policy, he managed the delicate balance of helping Ukraine fight Russia without getting America itself into a war. In sum, he has been a successful and effective president.

But I don’t think Biden and Vice President Harris should run for reelection. It’s painful to say that, given my admiration for much of what they have accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks undoing his greatest achievement—which was stopping Trump. 

On September 12, 2023, so wrote David Ignatius. The last statement in that opening passage turned out to be prophetic.

Full disclosure!  Ignatius never referenced cognitive decline in the course of his surprising column.  He only mentioned President Biden's age, and the way his advanced age was being viewed by large swaths of the electorate.

Ignatius never mentioned cognition. We'll guess that may have been the place his column came from, but we have no way to be sure.

Was something wrong with President Biden? Was his judgment already limited? Is it possible that major decisions were now being made—or were being influenced to an irregular degree—by various people around him?

Yes, of course that's possible—and, despite Ignatius' words of praise, the judgments being made were often remarkably poor. We refer, for example, to the ludicrous conduct at the southern border, accompanied by the lack of any attempt to explain those border policies.

Beyond that, we refer to the ludicrous approach to widespread concerns about inflation and the cost of living, in which President Biden kept stressing the utterly silly practice of "shrinkflation"—the practice by which consumers get charged the same old price for a slightly smaller bag of cookies or (potato) chips.

That was a ridiculous way to push back against inflation concerns. Was it a product of limited cognitive power, insisted on by the victim of that tragic decline?

Early in the June 27 debate, President Biden's apparent decline could no longer be hidden or wished away. It's as we noted on Tuesday:

At the nine-minute mark of that debate, the president authored a halting, tumbling non-answer answer which ended up making so little sense that it was no longer possible to avoid an obvious possibility:

Something seemed to be wrong with President Biden! Major Democrats still tiptoed around the specific shape of the problem. But at that debate, with the whole world watching, the reality of this apparent affliction was suddenly there for everyone to see.

Is it true that something was wrong with President Biden? For ourselves, we would take it as obvious that the answer is yes. And while we're at it, let's say it again:

In any such circumstance, we of course regard that affliction as a terrible human tragedy—as a tragic loss of human potential, as a tragic loss of the ability to lead a fully productive life.

We regard any such affliction as a human tragedy. But any such affliction is an affliction nonetheless. 

Was something wrong with President Biden? Increasingly, it seems that the answer is yes. Within that context, along has come a woman from Maine who has voiced a related question:

Is it possible that something is wrong with the current sitting president? Is it possible that something is wrong with President Trump? 

So asked the island dweller in yesterday's New York Times. As we noted yesterday, her letter reads exactly like this, New York Times heading included:

Trump Is Crossing So Many Lines

To the Editor:

Re “Trump Gives Commencement Address at West Point” (news article, May 25):

President Joe Biden was excoriated for his embarrassing and revealing performance at the campaign debate last year. Where is the press reaction to President Trump’s embarrassing, inappropriate and at times unhinged performance at West Point on Saturday, complete with his disrespectful red cap?

It was a public moment that should raise alarms about his mental health and judgment, just as Mr. Biden’s debate disaster did.

J— K—
Arrowsic, Maine

The letter came from a very small town—from a very small town on an island. The writer is asking a set of good questions. Paraphrasing just a bit, her questions go like this:

Is it possible that something is wrong with President Trump? 

Also, and speaking a bit more generally:

 Where is the press corps' reaction to the endless bizarre behaviors of the current sitting president? What explains the lack of alarm about his peculiar behaviors?

In our view, this island dweller is making a set of perfectly valid points:

She says that President Biden's performance at that debate should have raised alarms about "his mental health and judgment." She also says that similar alarms should exist with respect to President Trump. 

She suggests that President Trump's "mental health and judgment" should be the source of widespread alarm. It seems to us that her assessment is basically right.

Is the letter writer right? In our view, the answer is yes. She refers to President Trump's speech at West Point last weekend. We would instead refer to an endless string of ludicrous statements made by this sitting president—absurdly inaccurate factual claims which undermine the American discourse "in a way unlikely ever to be undone."

He never stops making these ludicrous statements! Is something wrong with President Trump? We'd guess that the (tragic) answer is yes.

That said, the New York Times, and the rest of the American press, is never going to give direct voice to any such focused sense of alarm.  As with the fictional citizens of Camus' fictional Oran, the men and women of the American press simply aren't able to come to terms with that fairly obvious task. 

Neither are the men and women who pretend to function at the highest levels of this nation's academic establishment. In our view, no clearly stated sense of alarm has emerged from that province either.

Is something wrong with President Trump—with his "mental health?" Why won't anyone at the New York Times, or anywhere else, directly pose that question?

As in Oran, so too here today. The authority figures we're taught to respect simply aren't up to that challenge. They aren't smart enough to tackle that question, nor do they have the requisite courage.

Presumably, they all believe that something may be wrong with the president's "mental health," but they aren't going to say so! Consider what happened in the final segment of the MSNBC program, All In, this past Tuesday night.

So promising! Chris Hayes started that final, rather brief segment in the very place where we ourselves had started that morning's report. As you can see by clicking here, he started that segment like this:

HAYES (5/27/25): If we're going to have a conversation about the mental acuity of a recent president, it does seem a little weird to be focusing exclusively on the last one, and not to also include the one who blasted out this typically, truly insane, all-caps social media screed yesterday...

Already, the worms of conflation were infesting that formulation. Tomorrow, we'll be more specific.

At any rate, Hayes now began to read from a "typically insane" Truth Socia post by the current sitting president. In our own report that morning, we had started in that same place. 

The full text of the president's screed appeared on the screen as Hayes read the way it started:

HAYES (continuing directly): "Happy Memorial Day to all"—

OK. Weird way to start.

"—including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country through warped radical left minds, who allowed 21 million people to illegally enter our country, many of them being criminals and the mentally insane, through an open border policy that only an incompetent president would approve."

And on and on and on, like an old man ranting at the sky. 

At that point, Hayes introduced the two guests who were supposedly going to help him discuss the point he was attempting to make. 

What exactly was that point? Hayes seemed to be saying that, even if something had been wrong with President Biden, something seems to be wrong with President Trump as well. He seemed to be echoing the lady from Maine—the woman who said that alarms should be raised within the press about the current president's "mental health and judgment."

We agree with the lady from Maine, and that start by Hayes may have seemed promising. But in the beginning was the end, and this apparent attempt at discussion fizzled out very fast.

Is something wrong with President Trump? Should the New York Times be devoting a series of article to that possibility? Should Hayes be devoting a series of segments to that woman's sense of alarm?

In our view, the answer is yes, but Hayes will never do that. Almost surely, his corporate owners won't allow it, and—not unlike the undisguised clowns who message on the Fox News Channel—he's being paid a very large (undisclosed) sum to color within the lines.

Why did this segment fizzle and die? Why will there be no follow-up?

In the beginning was the end! Hayes had laid the foundation of self-defeat right there in his opening statement. The short segment which ensued may have been a mildly pleasing sponge bath for viewers out in Blue America, but no real attempt was made to examine the question with which it started:

Something was wrong with President Biden? OK, but is it possible that something is wrong with the current sitting president?

In our view, the answer to that question seem to be (tragically) yes. That said, Hayes and his colleagues at MSNBC won't be articulating that possible point of alarm. Neither will the New York Times—and neither will our greatest academics.

Simply put, we humans aren't built for this line of work. Tomorrow, we'll journey back in time to show you what the greatest minds of the last century were thinking about, even as we first walked through the gates at Harvard College back in the mid-1960s.

Chris Hayes isn't going to explore that Maine woman's state of alarm. In fairness, neither will anyone else at Blue America's cable news channel.

Meanwhile, from the greatest minds at our great universities, the silence has been (almost) universal. The lady from Yale did give it a try. We all saw what happened to her.

Tomorow: The Quine–Putnam indispensability argument!

WEDNESDAY: "Unsustainable," Krugman said!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 2025

These are the numbers in question: Friend, how large is the federal deficit? Also, how large will federal deficits be if the current Trump budget bill passes into law?

(Breaking! At this site, we don't repeat branding language for the Republican Party. We don't refer to the proposed budget bill as "The Big Beautiful Bill.")

As we showed you yesterday afternoon, Paul Krugman recently said what's shown below. He's talking about where annual federal deficits stood before the new budget bill had even been proposed:

You don’t have to be a deficit fetishist, a fiscal scold—which I definitely am not—to realize that even before the [new budget bill] America was on an unsustainable fiscal path. 

So said Krugman. Even before this new bill came along, he says we were already "on an unsustainable path." 

As we noted yesterday, Peter Orszag said the same thing in a New York Times guest essay. On the basis of those presentations, we're going to guess that that our annual federal deficits have been rather large.

That said, how big have our deficits been? As deficit spending rose under Covid, here's where the numbers went:

Federal deficits, FY 2017-2024
2016: $590 billion
2017: $690 billion
2018: $780 billion
2019: $980 billion 

2020: $3.13 trillion
2021: $2.77 trillion
2022: $1.38 trillion
2023: $1.70 trillion
2024: $1.83 trillion

As noted, those are fiscal years, not calendar years. What's life in these United States without an extra source of potential confusion?

Hmmm. In reaction to Covid, the deficit tripled in fiscal year 2020. As compared to the halcyon days of the late teens, it has stayed rather high ever since.

Those are the numbers to which Krugman and Orszag were reacting—and while we're at it, Eek!  Here's where projected deficits stand even before any changes are created by the Trump budget bill:

Projected federal deficits, FY 2025-2029
2025: $1.9 trillion

[...]

2035: $2.7 trillion

Those numbers look rather large too. That said, the CBO summary adds one more element of complexification. That summary reads like this:

The Budget Outlook / Deficits

In CBO’s projections, the federal budget deficit in fiscal year 2025 is $1.9 trillion. Adjusted to exclude the effects of shifts in the timing of certain payments, the deficit grows to $2.7 trillion by 2035. It amounts to 6.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025 and drops to 5.2 percent by 2027 as revenues increase faster than outlays. In later years, outlays increase faster than revenues, on average. In 2035, the adjusted deficit equals 6.1 percent of GDP—significantly more than the 3.8 percent that deficits have averaged over the past 50 years.

Generally speaking, figure filberts describe the size of the federal deficit by comparing it to the size of the GDP. As matters stand, projected deficits before the new budget bill passes seem to be historically large, even after making that adjustment.

Those are the numbers which Krugman and Orszag were talking about. We're so old that we can remember when the press corps' discussions of such budget matters tended to include more numbers than they typically do today.

Today, our press corps and our cable news programs spend their time chasing President Trump's latest pronouncements around. What did he say in the last ten minutes? As with New England weather, so too here:

If you don't like his latest pronouncement, you just have to wait a while!

At any rate, those are the numbers to which Krugman and Orszag referred. They say those numbers constitute an actual problem. We're guessing they may be right.

There was a time when numbers like those would have been more fully discussed. Meanwhile, what will happen to those projections if the new budget bill becomes law?

Tomorrow, we'll show you the way that question tends to get answered at this point in time. We'd say that such formulations tend to be misleading at best, and sometimes just seem to be wrong.

THE QUESTIONS: From an island in Maine, a very good question!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 2025

"Where's the alarm about Trump?" This very morning, in its print editions, the New York Times features a letter from one of Maine's many islands.

The letter comes from a resident of Arrowsic, Maine.  As the miraculous Abraham Lincoln once emerged from geographic obscurity, today's letter comes from this little-known place:

Arrowsic, Maine

Arrowsic is a town in Sagadahoc County, Maine, United States. The population is 477 as of the 2020 United States census. It is part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area. During the French and Indian Wars, Arrowsic was site of a succession of important and embattled colonial settlements. It is a favorite with artists and birdwatchers.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 10.79 square miles...Arrowsic is on an island of the same name situated between the Kennebec River, Sasanoa River and Back River.

Technically, Arrowsic is an island, though it's connected to the mainland by a bridge. It's part of Portland's metropolitan area, so no—it isn't the boondocks. 

This very morning, the town of Arrowsic has offered the nation this letter. As presented by the Times, it's the last in a group of three:

Trump Is Crossing So Many Lines

To the Editor:

Re “Trump Gives Commencement Address at West Point” (news article, May 25):

President Joe Biden was excoriated for his embarrassing and revealing performance at the campaign debate last year. Where is the press reaction to President Trump’s embarrassing, inappropriate and at times unhinged performance at West Point on Saturday, complete with his disrespectful red cap?

It was a public moment that should raise alarms about his mental health and judgment, just as Mr. Biden’s debate disaster did.

J— K—
Arrowsic, Maine

So asks a woman from an island in Maine. We largely agree with her presentation. Let's examine the shape of her ask.

Was President Biden "excoriated" for his performance at that fateful debate? We wouldn't use that word ourselves, but the writer notes a highly significant fact:

In real time, President Biden's performance at that June 2024 debate produced a great deal of reaction within the American press corps. His performance that night was "revealing," the letter writer says.

Today, the publication of the Tapper/Thompson book, Original Sin, has led to renewed discussion of President Biden's performance that night. It has generated a discussion about his cognitive state even when he was sitting president.

In our view, "it's altogether fitting and proper" (Abraham Lincoln) that the discussion exists. That said, the letter writer asks a perfectly reasonable question:

Where is the press reaction to President Trump's ongoing behavior? Where is the corresponding press reaction to the constant, highly unusual behavior fashioned by President Trump?

The writer refers to the sitting president's "mental health," much as we've done in the past.  That said, it isn't necessary to point in that direction as a person calls attention to this, the most obvious fact in the world:

President Trump routinely engages in public behavior which is extremely unusual.

In theory, journalists consider it to be news when the airplane fails to land. In theory, journalists report and analyze events and behaviors which take us outside the norm.

The letter writer cites President Trump's recent address at West Point. Much as others have done, she describes as "embarrassing, inappropriate and at times unhinged."

Was something wrong with President Trump's address? Presumably, stated opinions will differ. But whatever a person may think of that particular address, there is no doubt about one fact:

The current president routinely engages in public behavior which takes us well beyond any recognizable norm. 

Some will approve of those constant behaviors. That said, they just keep coming on.

For current purposes, let's forget that West Point address. In recent days, the sitting president has also done these things:

He has suggested that former president Baack Obama should be subjected to a public military tribunal. He has revived a thirty-year old nutcase tale in which Bill and Hillary Clinton are said to have murdered a wide array of people.

Full disclosure! With respect to Hillary Clinton, that inflammatory theme is constantly pushed on the Fox News Channel "cable news" program, Gutfeld! The host of that primetime program plays this card night after night. 

As he does that, night after night, the press corps averts its gaze.

No one wants to tangle with Fox! As a general matter, it's this agreement to look away to which the letter writer refers. Writing from an island in Maine, she wonders why the American press corps isn't exploring the current president's highly unusual behaviors. 

As noted by friend and foe alike, this unusual conduct never stops. As we noted yesterday, it resulted in this remarkable holiday message just this past Monday morning:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS, WHO ALLOWED 21,000,000 MILLION PEOPLE TO ILLEGALLY ENTER OUR COUNTRY, MANY OF THE BEING CRIMINALS AND THE MENTAO INSANE,THROUGH AN OPEN BORDER THAT ONLY AN INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT WOULD APPROVE, AND THROUGH JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDERERS, AND RAPE AGAIN, PROTECTED BY THESE USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY. HOPEFULLY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, AND OTHER GOOD AND COMPASSIONATE JUDGES THROUGHOUT THE LAND, WILL SAVE US FROM THE DECISIONS OF THE MONSTERS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY TO GO TO HELL.

Outburst of that highly unusual kind are the norm with the current president. Presumably for different reasons, journalists of the right and the left tend to ignore these highly unusual outbursts.

Searching on the word "scum," we find one (1) reference to that peculiar holiday message in the New York Times. It's mentioned in a single paragraph—paragraph 13!—of this otherwise anodyne news report.

(Upbeat headline: "Trump Praises Military, and His Return to Office, in Memorial Day Remarks." In one glancing aside, the newspaper briefly mentions the sitting president's extremely peculiar remarks.)

As has now become fairly clear, it seems that something was wrong with President Biden even as he sat in the White House. In our view, the letter writer is asking a fairly obvious question:

Why aren't the boys and girls of the mainstream press exploring a similar possibility with respect to President Trump?

Something was (tragically) wrong with President Biden. Is it possible that something is (tragically) wrong with the furiously angry man who currently sits in the White House? With the furious person who constantly sabotages the American discourse with an endless stream of public claims which are cosmically inaccurate? 

With the steady stream of inflammatory public claims which are clownishly bogus?

The press corps is exploring the apparent fact that something was wrong with President Biden when he was in the White House. Why aren't they exploring the steady stream of highly unusual behaviors which emanate from President Biden's successor?

This very morning, the New York Times has published a letter from an island dweller which asks that fairly obvious question. In order to place her question in a fairly obvious type of context, we ask you to consider something which appeared in print editions of yesterday's New York times.

In the wake of last year's election, the Democratic Party seems to be thrashing and flailing. Given that apparent reality, here's what the Times had decided to do:

Six Months Later, Democrats Are Still Searching for the Path Forward

[...]

Six months after President Trump swept the battleground states, the Democratic Party is still sifting through the wreckage. Its standing has plunged to startling new lows—27 percent approval in a recent NBC News poll, the weakest in surveys dating to 1990—after a defeat that felt like both a political and cultural rejection.

[...]

And so The New York Times is beginning an occasional series of articles about the Democrats and their predicament: how it got so dire, what comes next and who could lead the way.

And so one from there.

In our view, it's "altogether fitting and proper" that the Times should undertake some such series of articles. But where is the series of front-page reports about the bizarre behaviors which constantly flow from the current sitting president—about his endless stream of ludicrous factual claims, about his endless acts of raw fury?

Where is the "series of articles" about such matters as that?

Across a causeway, on an island in Maine, an inquiring mind wants to know! Last night, MSNBC's Chris Hayes tried to ask a version of that question.

We didn't think it went very well. How did we Blues ever get to this place? Tomorrow, we'll try to show you.

Where's the alarm about President Trump, the letter writer asks. Even now, at this very late date, we think it's an obvious question.

We close today from that island in Maine—but also from Presque Isle, Maine, a small city which isn't an island, or even as isle, a small city found way up north.

As we noted on March 28, a teenage girl voiced a sensible type of complaint from that northern locale. This morning, a different Mainer asks a fairly obvious question from one of the state's island towns.

The teenage girl was hailed on the Fox News Channel. This morning, the islander's letter tilts Blue.

Each presentation was seminal—made an obvious type of sense. From various points in the vast state of Maine, intelligent people might be building the kind of causeway which can take us away from our unfolding disaster, a bridge which might help us find our way "back out of all this now too much for us."

Tomorrow: Running on (something like) empty

TUESDAY: Should liberals care about deficits / debt?

TUESDAY, MAY 27, 2025

Pepperidge Farm remembers: Friend, should liberals care about our annual budget deficits and about the ongoing accumulation of federal debt?

This very day, in the New York Times, this assessment appears:

I Was Obama’s Budget Director. It’s Time to Worry About the National Debt.

[...]

For years it was reasonable to tune out the worrywarts carping about deficits. With very low interest rates, a lack of particularly attractive alternatives to U.S. Treasuries for investors and a muted market reaction to serial Capitol Hill dramas over raising the debt limit, those who bemoaned the unsustainability of deficit spending and debt levels seemed to cry wolf—a lot. Even as a former White House budget director, I grew skeptical of their endless warnings.

Not anymore.

Two things have changed: First, the wolf is now lurking much closer to our door. Annual federal budget deficits are running at 6 percent of G.D.P. or higher, compared with well under 3 percent a decade ago...and in the current fiscal year the government is projected to spend more on interest payments than on defense, Medicaid or Medicare. That’s right: Our borrowing now costs us more each year than each of these big, essential budget items.

Meanwhile, federal debt held by the public, excluding Federal Reserve holdings, as a share of G.D.P. has increased by about a third since 2015. The Congressional Budget Office, which I once led, projects that by 2029, our debt as a share of our economy will grow to levels unprecedented since the years after World War II...

This guest essay comes from Peter Orszag, who did indeed head the OMB during President Obama's first term. That said, some of you may still be skeptical—at one point, Orszag was director of the CBO under President George W. Bush!

For those inclined to be skeptical, Paul Krugman stated a similar view in a recent Substack essay. His essay concerned the budget bill which recently passed the House.

The budget bill passed the House by a 215-214 vote—by the type of victory margin now known as a "Fox News Landslide." Nonetheless, the budget bill did squeeze by in the House on its way to the Senate. Here's part of what Krugman said about that "Budget of Abominations:"

What a Decent Budget Would Look Like: Imagining a Congress that was neither cruel nor irresponsible

[,,,]

What I thought I’d do today is talk about what might be happening now if the party controlling Congress and the White House consisted of decent people—not saints, but at least people who genuinely cared about the welfare of their constituents and the future of the nation.

One option, of course, would have been for Congress to do nothing. That, itself, would have been a big improvement on what actually went down.

But Congress could and should do more. You don’t have to be a deficit fetishist, a fiscal scold—which I definitely am not—to realize that even before the Budget of Abominations America was on an unsustainable fiscal path. So what will it take to get back to a tolerable fiscal position?

Krugman went on to list four relatively "easy" ways we could "improve our fiscal position." For today, we're focusing only on this statement:

You don’t have to be a deficit fetishist, a fiscal scold—which I definitely am not—to realize that even before the Budget of Abominations America was on an unsustainable fiscal path. 

Krugman isn't a fiscal scold, but he says we're "on an unsustainable path." Today, Orszag says much the same thing.

We're so old that we can remember when news reporting about topics like this actually came with a few basic numbers.  In these latter days, the handful of numbers which may appear in such reports may even tend to obscure the situation. 

Basic numbers are few and far between in these exhausting days of chasing the latest from Trump around. Tomorrow, we'll show you a few basic numbers. Pepperidge Farm remembers!

Krugman and Orszag have adjusted their views. We're not budget experts ourselves, but we're going to take a guess:

We'll guess there's a chance that they're right!

THE QUESTIONS: No one asked about President Biden!

TUESDAY, MAY 27, 2025 

But what about President Trump? The fateful debate was held on June 27, 2024. Seven minutes into the session, one of the candidates made a striking misstatement.

He'd already made several other groaning misstatements. Now, at the seven-minute mark, this candidate made a statement which was just stunningly wrong.

For now, we'll skip past that misstatement! About two minutes later, the other candidate delivered the stumbling, incoherent presentation which would doom his search for a second term in the White House.

We were now roughly nine minutes into this fateful debate. At that point, moderator Jake Tapper tossed a question to Candidate Biden concerning the rapidly growing national debt—the topic with which he and moderator Dana Bash had decided to start the debate.

It was a perfectly valid topic. Candidate Donald J. Trump had already spoken to the issue. Now, Tapper turned to the sitting president of the United States.

As you can see on this videotape, here's what that candidate said:

TAPPER (6/27/24): President Biden, I want to give you an opportunity to respond to this question about the national debt.

BIDEN: He had the largest national debt of any president in a four-your period, number one. Number two, he—that $2 trillion tax cut benefited the very wealthy. I—what I'm going to do is fix the tax system. For example:

We have a thousand trillionaires in America—I mean, billionaires in America. And what's happening? They're in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes. 

If they just paid 24 percent or 25 percent, either one of those numbers, they'd raise 500 million dollars—billion dollars, I should say—in a 10-year period.

We'd be able to right—wipe out his debt. We'd be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do—child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the, uh— with, with, with the COVID—

Excuse me, with, um, dealing with everything we have to do with— uh—

[PAUSE]

Look—

[PAUSE]

If— We finally beat Medicare!

TAPPER: Thank you, President Biden. President Trump?

So said President Biden! In the aftermath of that halting, stumbling statement, his candidacy came to an end.

(For a transcript of the full debate, click here.)

For the record, that statement by President (and Candidate) Biden started out like other statements by major Democratic Party candidates. As the president started, he seemed to be making a reasonably normal statement. 

He did say "trillionaires" when he meant "billionaires"—and he did refer to "millions" of dollars when he meant to say "billions" of dollars. Also, his voice was notably weak. 

That said, he seemed to be making standard pledges about such basic policy issues as child care, elder care and health care. Beyond that, he seemed to be proposing a large tax increase on billionaires to finance his programs in those areas—a set of programs he hadn't yet described,

(If that tax increase was going to be used to finance policy initiatives, then of course it wouldn't be used to address the national debt. Let's skip past that for now.)

On paper, the transcript of President Biden's statement seems recognizable as he starts. That said, his voice was soft and his voice was weak—and he soon lost his way altogether.

The president had started by making a recognizable type of pledge. He said he was going to make every citizen eligible for what he said he'd been able to do with some unspecified aspect of American life. 

At that point, his presentation wholly broke down.

The president couldn't seem to remember what he'd been planning to say. A statement which was already fuzzy turned into a painful, halting series of starts and stops—and, by now, his voice was squeaking as he tried to gather his thoughts. 

On paper, the presentation seems fairly normal as the president starts. On videotape, the presentation is painful to watch—and it ends with what may have been the most remarkable statement in the history of presidential debates:

"We finally beat Medicare," the sitting president weirdly said. Transparently, that statement made no earthly sense. 

At that point, Tapper threw to Candidate Trump, who responded with this:

TRUMP (continuing directly): Well, he's right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death...

That didn't exactly make sense either. But so on from there.

Nine minutes into that fateful debate, President Biden's presentation had transformed a presidential race he already seemed to be losing. Today, a new book by Tapper and Alex Thompson is exploring the history of President Biden's apparent cognitive decline.

As that book is discussed, a basic question is being asked, sometimes (not always) in disingenuous ways:

Why didn't journalists in the mainstream press report on President Biden's apparent decline before that painful debate?

Why didn't journalists pursue that question before that fateful event? Pursued in a respectable way, that's a perfectly reasonable question.

Within our nation's sprawling propaganda media, the usual suspects are frequently placing their thumbs on the scales as they advance that question. That said, it's perfectly reasonable to ask that question about the political people around President Biden during his term in office. 

Beyond that, it's a reasonable question to ask about the mainstream (and conservative) press.

Why didn't the mainstream press ask about President Biden? In our view, that's a perfectly reasonable question. At that June 27 debate, the bizarre presentation we've transcribed suddenly brought that question center stage.

Today, our flailing nation has a different sitting president. In the case of this current sitting president, he posted a remarkable holiday message yesterday morning.

Needless to say, he posted his message all caps. The sitting president posted this unusual holiday message bright and early yesterday morning, at 6:45 a.m.:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS, WHO ALLOWED 21,000,000 MILLION PEOPLE TO ILLEGALLY ENTER OUR COUNTRY, MANY OF THE BEING CRIMINALS AND THE MENTAO INSANE,THROUGH AN OPEN BORDER THAT ONLY AN INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT WOULD APPROVE, AND THROUGH JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDERERS, AND RAPE AGAIN, PROTECTED BY THESE USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY. HOPEFULLY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, AND OTHER GOOD AND COMPASSIONATE JUDGES THROUGHOUT THE LAND, WILL SAVE US FROM THE DECISIONS OF THE MONSTERS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY TO GO TO HELL.

Early on Memorial Day, he posted that unusual message, typos and all. Later, he reposted the message with the typos corrected and with a small addition at the end.

Happy Memorial Day to all, our current sitting president said. This current president said he was including THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY. 

In the past, this president has posted other such furious, name-calling statements to mark other major holidays, Christmas and Easter included. Just last week, he reposted a screed from a QAnon-affiliated source saying that former president Barack Obama should face a public military tribunal for some unnamed offense.

Was something wrong with President Biden even as he sat in the Oval Office? Should major news orgs have pursued that question in a more assiduous way even before the June 27 debate?

Was "something wrong" with that sitting president? Should major news orgs have asked? 

In the case of President Bidne, many people are now saying yes.  But what about President Trump? Is it possible that something is also "wrong" with him?

As with President Biden, so too with President Trump! Whatever the answer to that question might turn out to be, our major news orgs have been ducking that fairly obvious question—and they've been ducking that question for years.

How did we ever get to this dangerous, unintelligent place—this place "now too much for us?" Many questions have gone unasked down through these dangerous years. Many of our nation's elites have played a part in this dangerous failure to serve.

Was something wrong with President Biden? Some news orgs failed to ask. 

Is something—most likely, something different—currently "wrong with" President Trump? Once again, major news orgs are working hard to avoid that fairly obvious question. 

We speak of news orgs of the left, the center and the right. In our view, the men and women of academia have also walked off their posts.

Many questions have gone unasked within our failing discourse. You might call them roads not taken. We'll try to explore them here.

Tomorrow: The border, the silence, the "woke"

FALLING APART: Something was wrong with President Biden!

SATURDAY, MAY 24, 2025

Something is wrong with Trump: Back then, something was wrong with President Biden. 

Over here in Blue America, large segments of the population 1) couldn't discern that fairly obvious fact, or 2) chose not to talk about it.

Today, something rather plainly is wrong with President Trump. (That has been true all along.)

Over there in Red America, large segments of the population have sworn their sacred honor not to mention that fairly obvious fact. That includes all the messenger children employed by the Fox News Channel, from Gutfeld and Tyrus on down.

Something was wrong with President Biden. Something is wrong with President Trump.

There is one major difference:

Under current arrangements, large segments of Blue America have joined forces with those messenger children. They have agreed that they must never center this fairly obvious ongoing question:

What the f*ck—what the Sam Hill—is wrong with President Trump? 

Over here in Blue America, the finer people who still lead good lives have agreed that they mustn't ask! As they maintain their strategic silence, a large, well-known modern nation is rapidly falling apart.

What the freak is wrong with President Trump? Why does he continue to say the craziest things?

Why is his conduct so absurdly erratic? What explains his endless rage? What the f*ck is wrong with this man?

Is he lying when he makes his crazy claims, or is he incompetent in some way which needs to be explored? By now, that's a blindingly obvious question.  But within Blue America's finer orgs, no one is going to ask.

After Memorial Day has come and gone, we're going to try to clarify the nature of this failure to serve. To Red America, but also to our own Blue America, we're going to offer this simple directive:

You have a citizen's duty.

We Blues were deceived in a hundred ways on route to last year's election defeat. At present, our neighbors and friends in Red America are being deceived, around the clock, by the tools on the Fox News Channel.

(Presumably, some of those tools don't know that they're tools. Presumably, some of them do.)

At present, our neighbors and friends in Red America are being deceived around the clock. David Brooks won't talk about this. In full fairness, neither will Rachel Maddow, and neither will anyone else.

All of us, Red and Blue, are being grossly misled. In theory, each of us has a citizen's duty—but in what does that duty consist?

Something was wrong with President Biden. Something (presumably, something different) is wrong with President Trump. (As we've said, that strikes us as a human tragedy—as a tragic loss of human potential.)

That said, what exactly is wrong with President Trump? In our view, David Brooks has a citizen's duty to step forward and center that question. If he has to speak to (carefully chosen) medical specialists, that's what he'll just have to do.

(It wouldn't hurt if Nicholas Kristof went ahead and did the same thing.)

When in the world will David Brooks accept his duty as a citizen? When will the silent lambs of our highest elites at long last agree to serve?

When will they confront the challenge posed by the Fox News Channel? When will they directly state the obvious fact that something is wrong with President Trump, as was the fairly obvious case with President Biden before him?

"Something we were withholding made us weak?" When will our lambs walk away from their silence? 

When will these lambs agree to serve? When will they center the truth?