WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2026
Cupp says it's Trump being Trump: CNN's Aaron Blake is a good, decent person. He's also a perfectly capable political journalist.
That said, Aaron Blake's persistent behavior continues to get a pass! We base that assessment on Blake's new essay for CNN. The headline above it says this:
President Trump’s bizarre behavior often gets a pass.
Actually, that's just part of the CNN headline. Full headline included, Blake's essay starts like this:
Trump’s bizarre behavior often gets a pass. That’s starting to change
The week is still young. But it’s already been a humdinger for President Donald Trump.
In the span of 24 hours, he appeared to doze off (again) while his top health official espoused the dangers of declining teenage sperm. He called the White House a “shit house.” He mused about making Venezuela the 51st state (after having already captured its leader). He struggled to identify Indiana University football coach Curt Cignetti, despite standing right next to him and having seemingly looked directly at him moments earlier.
And late Monday night, he unleashed a wild social media flurry that stood out even by his often-outlandish standards: posting and reposting more than 50 times in less than an hour. Those included long-debunked theories about Dominion voting machines deleting millions of votes in the 2020 election, posts about the decade-old Hillary Clinton email server controversy, a made-up claim about a GOP senator from a hoax website, unflattering AI images of prominent Democrats, three derogatory videos about Black people (including one captioned “Always scheming…”) and two separate posts advocating for the arrest of former President Barack Obama.
It’s the kind of behavior that undeniably prompts concern. But Trump, who turns 80 in June, has so far avoided a true reckoning about it. And that’s in large part because he’s spent more than a decade doing bizarre things in public, long before he was considered elderly.
Blake continues from there at substantial length. He cites data from opinion surveys to drive his principal claim, according to which the public is growing more concerned about the possibility that the president may be "well, a bit off."
Could Blake's journalism possibly be "a bit off"—be a bit too soft? For the record, here are the findings in question:
A recent poll from Reuters and Ipsos showed 61% of Americans and even 30% of Republicans said Trump had become “more erratic with age.”
Another showed Americans said 71%-26% that Trump is not “even-tempered”—wider than the 62%-37% split that the Pew Research Center showed after the 2024 election.
A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll last month showed 59% of Americans said Trump didn’t have the mental sharpness required to serve as president—the highest such number to date and a full 16 points higher than in 2023.
And the same poll showed 67% of Americans said Trump doesn’t carefully consider important decisions. Even 30% of Republicans agreed with that statement.
Plainly, those are unflattering survey data—but citizens, is it true? Is it true that the president's behavior has become "more erratic?"
We aren't entirely sure. He's been erratic for a good long while. Nor is that the obvious point.
We do know that Blake stays on the same old path. For better or worse, he carefully uses euphemisms to hint at the possibility of cognitive decline, and he never mentions the fact that major medical observers began suggesting, long ago, that dangerous mental health / mental illness problems may have been there all along.
Remarkable, isn't it? Even after the experience with President Biden, today's muckrakers can't even bring themselves to use straightforward language is discussing the less complicated, more familiar matter of possible cognitive decline!
No medical specialists were cited in the course of Blake's lengthy report.
As for the refusal to see what's right before them, there went S. E. Cupp again! Last night, she guested on Erin Burnett OutFront—and it seems to us that she took the predictable dive.
To her credit, Burnett went out of her way in her opening segment to describe the president's many strange behaviors during the previous 24 hours.
To our ear, Cupp decided to run off and hide:
BURNETT (5/12/26): That's the president of the United States, and his behavior today came after he spent much of the night seemingly awake. Maybe that's why he's so testy, posting and reposting on social media. In fact, since 10 o'clock last night, overnight, [he's posted] more than 75 times.
Do you know anybody who does that, including posting a picture of a $100 bill with his own face on it? He posted that.
He also posted Mount Rushmore with his face being etched into the stone, and then he posted an A.I. generated image of former Presidents Obama and Biden, along with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, swimming in sewage. So, he posted all of those things in those 70-plus posts.
The president had been up all night, offering remarkably strange Truth Social posts. Below, you see what Cupp said when she was asked to comment:
BURNETT: ...I mean, 75 posts overnight!
CUPP: Yeah.
BURNETT: Look, that's disturbing. Yes. Okay. I find that disturbing. Any American should find that disturbing, right? That means you're not sleeping. It means you're not in a good place. Yes. And these include Mount Rushmore with his face, $100 bill with his face. It's not as if he's not posting deep policy thoughts.
CUPP: If our child or our parent were doing this, we'd be very worried about them. But this is a pattern of Trump's. You can always tell when his back is against the wall. He goes on these late night binges to flood the zone.
Go back to all the late-night binges. He was really up against it, either in polling or in terms of messaging, selling something that he couldn't sell, having to answer questions he didn't want to answer, whether it was Epstein or the war or tariffs. I mean, he's done this before and he really is losing a lot of the support he could once count on, both from his own voters on the war, but also you know, influencers and Fox News.
You know, he's railing against Fox News constantly because they are not helping him sell this war or this economy. And he's up against it. This is what he does.
Our translation would go like this:
If your parent did it, you'd be quite concerned. But this is just Trump being Trump!
It's also the press corps doing what the press corps does. For better or worse, this familiar practice—the practice of agreeing not to see and not to say—doesn't seem likely to stop.
Somerby complains:
ReplyDelete"For better or worse, he carefully uses euphemisms to hint at the possibility of cognitive decline, "
Blake's language echoes the terms used in the questions of that Reuters-Ipsos poll because he is not independently evaluating Trump but is reporting the results of a survey. The survey chose the terms that appear in their questions. When Blake talks about Trump being erratic, not mentally ill, it is because that was the wording of the poll that people responded to.
On what basis can Blake conclude that Trump must be getting more demented based on the answers respondents gave to survey questions? Surveys measure public opinion, not presidential competence.
Somerby chastises Blake for not stating decisively that Trump is more demented, but then he says himself:
ReplyDelete"Is it true that the president's behavior has become "more erratic?"
We aren't entirely sure."
If Somerby isn't sure, much less "entirely" sure, how can he blame Blake for not going out on that limb in an assigned piece on other people's opinions?
On what planet are reporters allowed to ignore their assigned topics and just write their own opinions about the mental health of the president?
Is Somerby so lazy that he will not google the opinions of actual neurologists and psychiatrists about Trump's worsening cognitive functioning? He doesn't have to look for that info in a report on public opinion and Trump's erratic behavior. He can find it right where it belongs, in the opinions of those who assess cognitive status for a living.
Somerby takes care to remind us that Aaron Blake is a good decent person, unlike his introduction of Abby Phillip or Bakari Sellers, who he slimed yesterday. Blake did his job, he is neither black nor female (and thus good and decent) but he wasn't paid to write an opinion piece, and he didn't. That shows more common sense than Somerby has. So, why does Somerby choose him to malign today? Is he too young?
He leans slightly right after working at The Hill and The Washington Post prior to CNN. Maybe that makes him good and decent in Somerby's eyes?
DeleteToday Somerby is Blake's would-be assignment editor. Where is DG to complain about that?
Delete"Even after the experience with President Biden..." Somerby says.
ReplyDeleteWhat was the experience with President Biden? First, there was a thorough report on why he had difficulties during his first debate. Then there was a thorough medical exam and report released about his physical and mental status. His own doctor explained that he was tested for cognitive functioning routine, every morning, by white house medical staff. Then his top staff, members of Congress (of both parties), foreign leaders and recent visitors who had met with and interacted with Biden attested to his mental competence, saying that he was sharp and in command of the facts at his meetings, participating fully. Harris vouched for him, as did many others. All of that evidence of mental competence was ignored by Democrats who wanted him out, and Republicans who were targeting him. The press ignored it too, with the NY Times conducting a relentless Biden is Too Old campaign, using deceptive fake videos and Jake Tapper's self-serving book excerpts (a right wing hit piece).
The experience last time with Biden was that evidence was ignored in favor of political manipulation to remove him from the ticket. Today, evidence of Trump's decline and incompetence from many sources is being ignored because powerful people want him to remain in office, That is the same situation as with Biden, except in one case the powers wanted a leader removed whereas today, they want an incompetent leader to remain in place.
Somerby is wrong to blame the press for this situation. The press is doing what it has been told -- corporate press is protecting Trump while independent media is calling his health into question. Somerby obediently pretends that the corporate press is Blue (it is not) and the only press in town (it is not that either).
Somerby's dishonest about this is staggering. He keeps substituting the word mentally ill for cognitive decline, and he pretends that Trump is functioning well, even if insane, when Trump is obviously incompetent. And Somerby will only hector the press. He will not call for our elected representatives to do their fucking jobs and remove Trump before he hurts more people. This situation in Congress is unacceptable, yet Somerby never mentions what is going on there. He would rather pick on someone like Blake who has just started a new job at CNN and is not ready to be anyone's fall guy.
According to WSJ, Natalie Harp assembles the input materials that Trump retweets on Truth Social at night. She also has written drafts of potential posts that go out over Trump's own signature and helps him write those he initiates himself. She brings stacks of materials to him in the early evening. Katy Tur says that other staff are frustrated by both her access to Trump and the lack of screening of what eventually appears on his account. She is a slim 34-year old blonde, like so many of Trump's hires.
ReplyDeleteIs this any way to run a presidency? Even Somerby cannot say this is normal. The lack of screening and her sycophancy would account for the bizarre nature of what appears on his account every night.
When old people have dementia, you learn to choose your battles. It is routine to humor the delusions, as long as it will not result in harm to anyone. Staff do not bother contradicting anything unless it is against rules or harmful. That seems to be what is happening with Trump. His handlers give him things to do to stay busy (such as reviewing ballroom plans with an architect), avoid telling him no but not carrying forward his demands if they can avoid it, never contradicting or denying anything he says, and giving him ways to feel important with fake gold foil and flattering photo ops with children. And they let him put whatever ridiculous thing he wants on his Truth Social feed, because why not? It isn't like anyone is paying attention to it anyway, except the internet and what are we going to do about it?
THIS is evidence that Trump has too incapacitated to be president. We need a real, functioning leader, not this old fart. Somerby needs to be saying that, not picking on young reporters, almost at random, because he never got to work for a newspaper himself. Somerby is nearly as embarrassing as Trump in the way he is conducting his blog these days.
Let’s give a shout out to the GOP, the party of toadies and sycophants, worshipping their emperor’s gold statue and defending his every insanity.
ReplyDeleteWhen Nixon was president, the gop actually came to believe it was time for him to go. What’s different now?
Trump is a billionaire. Nixon wasn't. Nixon was politically ambitious, greedy for power not wealth. He was paranoid and vengeful but not crazy like Trump is.
DeleteTrump says 'I don't think about Americans' financial situation' in Iran negotiations
DeleteDumbest motherfucking sonofabitch in history to sit in the Oval Office
Trump was been disturbed from day one 2015. Worse are
ReplyDeletehis enablers who sold their country down the river.