THURSDAY: Is the sitting president "out of his mind?"

THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 2025

A reader asked Philip Bump: So now we're left with President Trump being the person who has to make a major, fateful decision.

We don't mean this as an insult, but he isn't the person we would have chosen. For those of us in Blue America, it might not be a bad time to remember some of the ways we managed to get ourselves here.

We kept insisting that nothing was wrong at the southern border. We kept insisting that nothing was wrong with President Biden.

With respect to complaints about the rise in the overall cost of living, we kept insisting, on loan from the early Dylan, that "them old dreams are only in your head." And then too, also this:

Frequently, we adopted stances concerning various social issues—various stances which came to be described as "woke." Even if we judge those stances to be ultimately correct, some of those stances took us well beyond the boundaries of conventional understanding and assessment—and you go to the polls with the electorate you currently have.

(In our view, quite a few of those stances probably weren't ultimately correct. Some of those stances weren't just wrong on the politics, they were also wrong on the merits.)

Also this:

We spent years focusing on the desire to Lock the Other Guy Up. The many hours we spent on the minutia of those legal cases were hours we didn't spend on the topics which may have been moving voters away from our own liberal / progressive / Democratic camp.

We aren't the geniuses we've claimed to be—not morally, not intellectually.  Our endless name-calling also got us here, to the place where President Trump will end up being the person who has to make the decision.

Along the way, we still refuse to improve our journalistic game. We refer you to a recent exchange involving the Washington Post's Philip Bump.

Bump is no one's idea of a slouch; he does plenty of good work. In part for that reason, we were struck by what he said in response to this question from a reader during a Washington Post "Live Chat:" 

Is Trump tactical—or out of his mind? I answered your questions.

[...]

Is Trump truly out of his mind? 
Guest

He demands "unconditional surrender" from Iran and adds that he knows where knows Iran’s supreme leader is but won’t kill him, “at least not for now.” What do you think: Finely tuned negotiating tactic or lunacy?

That was one of a bunch of questions to which Bump responded. The reader seemed to be asking if there could be some kind of a problem with the state of President Trump's mental health. 

The headline seems to have been composed by the Washington Post.

Over the past eight years, medical and psychiatric specialists have sometimes rather clearly suggested that the answer to the headlined question is yes. That said, Bump is a journalist, not a medical specialist—but instead of simply saying so, this is the "answer" he gave:

Philip Bump 
Columnist

President Trump is driven by a number of basic and at times conflicting motivations. One is that he acts on impulse. Another is his desire to look strong. Another, related one is that he is wildly insecure. Another, also related one is that he is eager not to have anyone understand just how out of his depth he is in his current position.

If you consider that Truth Social post in that light, it makes sense. He's demanding "unconditional surrender" from a foreign country that … the U.S. isn't at war with? It is an attainable toughness for Trump, suggesting that the U.S. is leaning on Iran without having to cajole Congress into sending actual troops (or just sending them, as has been the norm in the past few decades).

But it's not like Iran was about to simply surrender to … who, exactly? So the result of this (almost certainly) impulsive declaration is that Trump looks weaker, if only incrementally. OK, they didn't surrender. So now what?

He has no answer for that either. So, for the moment, he appears to be content basking in the reflected glow of Israel's bombing runs.

That's an answer which isn't an answer. It's basically standard yak.

Bump could have summarized some of the analyses which have been offered by some medical specialists, including Trump's own niece. Instead, he went with a standard issue pseudo-answer—with an imitation of life.

Is something wrong with President Trump? (Colloquially, is he "out of his mind?")

At this site, we aren't medical specialists either! That said, we continue to wonder about this assessment by the president's niece:

The fact is, his 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.

That's a small part of what Mary Trump wrote about her uncle's apparent "psychopathologies" in her best-selling book from 2020. In the book, she accompanies her punishing portrait of the adult version of her uncle with a sympathetic portrait of the way he got to be the way he is, starting with a deeply unfortunate family event when he was two years old.

(Also, starting with an even earlier unfortunate fact—the fact that he was born to a sociopathic father. Or so says Mary Trump.)

For ourselves, we continue to wonder about "Delusional disorder" as described by the leading authority on the unfortunate syndrome. It seems to us that President Trump is gripped by the idea that he's one of the planet's handful of truly great men—that he's a towering figure on a plane with potentates like Putin and Xi, a person whose unmatchable greatness takes him far beyond the stature of the pitiful and stupid people who lead our traditional "allies."

Mary Trump describes the way his (sociopathic) father taught him to see the world through that disordered lens (in effect, as "The Great I-Am"). The fact that she offered these assessments doesn't mean that her assessments are right. But Philip Bump isn't a medical specialist, and when he gets a question like the one he received, he ought to start by stating that fact before he gives something resembling an answer.

(Does the president feel that he is The Great I-Am, a transcendent global figure by dint of his vast abilities? Such a belief would, it seems, be delusion-adjacent—but in this very dangerous moment, he finally stands astride the world, the transcendent figure on whom we must all rely.)

What would a (carefully selected) medical specialist think about the question Bump was asked? If we had the reach of the Washington Post, we'd be inclined to ask!

Our national discourse is quite unimpressive, even among us Blues. By and large, we Blues seem to be unaware of that unfortunate but obvious fact.

Philip Bump does a lot of good work. That said, there's a rule he isn't allowed to break—a rule he failed to acknowledge when he answered that fuzzy, somewhat flippant question in the way he did.

Strong advice for a disabled nation: Dylan was barely 21 when he wrote Talkin' World War III Blues. The song ends with an offer—with a new and transcendent dream—which could hardly be more relevant for our broken nation:

Talkin' World War III Blues

[...]

Well, time passed and now it seems
Everybody's having them dreams.
Everybody sees hisself walkin' around with no one else.
"Half of the people can be part right all of the time;
"Some of the people can be all right part of the time;
"But all of the people can't be all right all of the time."
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.
I said that.

We'd call that brilliant youthful advice. We'd call it a driving dream. 

There was a bit more room for hope at that time. To hear the recording, click here.