MONDAY: Closest allies growing concerned...

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2026

...about president's future conduct: Exactly as we told you on Friday, full services will resume some day this very week! 

In the meantime, Mediaite, reporting on Axios and the Wall Street Journal, invites us to think about this:

‘Beginning of the End’: Trump Advisers Reportedly Spooked He Will Increasingly ‘Act Out’ as He Loses His Grip on Power

In a piece titled “Behind the Curtain: Trump’s future foretold,” Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen report that Trump’s closest allies are growing increasingly concerned about how the president will act as his term draws to a close.

“The skeleton key for unlocking Trump’s mind is understanding that he thinks constantly about exercising power, and believes power is a zero-sum game—a winner and a loser,” VandeHei and Allen wrote.

They added, “Trump advisers and confidants describe him as generally in a good mood. But some privately confess he can get too cranky too quickly sometimes and that he’s showing his 80 years on Earth.”   

The report comes on the heels of a Wall Street Journal article titled “Wave of Setbacks Leaves Trump Frustrated and Looking for Credit.” That story, as well, painted a picture of an increasingly frustrated president growing more desperate and lashing out.  

Is Mediaite overstating the content of these reports? It's strange to see a provocative phrase ("Beginning of the End") adding spice to a headline when the provocative phrase in question doesn't appear in the body of the report. 

(Concern that the president might "act out" does appear in the report, but it doesn't appear as a quote from those "Trump advisers.")

Whatever! However you slice it, these reports involve a question we've raised at this site again and again and again. Given the possible mental illness / cognition issues our press corps insists on avoiding, what might the sitting president start deciding to do once the midterm elections have passed?  

Even in the Axios quote, Allen and VandeHei go euphemistic with respect to possible cognitive decline. 

Euphemistically, they refer to the possibility that the sitting president is "showing his 80 years on Earth.”  Our journalists will go to great lengths to avoid discussing the possibility of mental illness and/or cognitive decline.

The high-end press isn't going to drop its avoidance of adult discussion with respect to such possible infirmities. Meanwhile, where might the president's future impulses take us?

That's a second, separate question. Because of the possible danger involved, it might be time to act like grown-ups in crafting our public discussions of same.

Update: As an example of what we're talking about, go ahead and just click here. Please remember our basic rules:

A (serious) mental illness is an illness. Also, as a general matter, people don't choose to be cognitively impaired:

Trump Goes on Bonkers Rant Against Climate Change, Tying It to AI: ‘Nobody Was Dead’

President Donald Trump went on an electronic tirade against climate change, comparing any controversy surrounding it to recent panic that AI “will kill us all.”

In a Truth Social post on Monday afternoon, the president denounced the threat of “Global Warming,” saying the name has since been “‘reborn’ to Climate Change.”

“The same people that said, ‘We’ll all be dead in twelve years because of Global Warming,’ a name since ‘reborn’ to Climate Change, because the Planet was cooling, not warming, and nobody was dead, are the people that are now saying that AI is going to kill us, that robots are going to attack us, and everything is a DISASTER,” Trump wrote. “This is more of a Hoax than even that of RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, and Climate Change!”   

[...] 

Moments before, Trump posted another poll that asked his followers for their preferred name for artificial intelligence, days after he announced his intention to change what he called an “inaccurate” and “very ineloquent” moniker.

Greg Gutfeld couldn't peddle this climate messaging better. And so on from there.

FRIDAY: Full services resume on Monday!

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2026

Such as those services are: On Monday, we expect to return to something resembling normal services, such as those services are.   

Meanwhile, here's the headline on a report at Mediaite—a report in which several journalists start talking about apparent mental health and mental illness issues, or at least about cognitive decline, though perhaps only inferentially:  

Critics Rip ‘Donnie Dementia’ as Trump Rambles About Sharks and Electrocution at Rose Garden Event

The Atlantic's Tom Nichols is one of those journalists. You can read the full report here.

The headline treats this apparent (and presumably dangerous) problem as a source of mockery and insult. We'll almost surely be returning to this apparent problem when we resume next week.  

Meanwhile, here's the start of a separate report in the Washington Post. People, we're just saying:  

Trump says Kennedy Center could be ‘ripped down’ without his intervention

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his administration deserves to have its name recognized at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in exchange for rescuing the financially troubled institution, warning that without his intervention the venue will eventually close and be “ripped down.”

“For us as an administration to want to do that, I think the Trump administration should be recognized,” Trump told reporters while visiting North Carolina to campaign for the Republican Senate nominee. The president said the center would require years of financial support even after a roughly $250 million renovation.

“Frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close,” he said. “It’ll end up being ripped down.”

Trump’s remarks sharpened his position that saving the Kennedy Center hinges on putting his name on the building, a day after he threatened to block its renovation unless the courts allow the institution to do just that.   

The report continues from there.

THURSDAY: Mary Jo and Billy Bob?

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2026

The latest "Deplorables moment?" The president's meltdown seems to be picking up speed. As it does, our journalists still refuse to discuss what seems to be taking place right before everyone's eyes. 

If he attacked someone on Fifth Avenue, would even one journalist be willing to go there? 

We'll guess that the answer is no. And even as that silence pervades, Blue America can't seem to stop shooting itself in the foot in the manner described below.

Here's CNN's Dana Bash on Inside Politics, introducing Dan Osborn, the Senate candidate Democrats are backing in Nebraska:

BASH (9/16/26): Democrats' hopes of capturing the Senate could come down to independents, like Dan Osborn in Nebraska. The mechanic and union leader is not running as a Democrat, though the Democratic Party is behind his campaign and certainly against Republican Senator Pete Ricketts. Here's why. 

When Kamala Harris lost Nebraska by 21 points in 2024, Dan Osborn was on the ballot, and he came within seven points of defeating Senator Deb Fischer. So he decided to run again. 

In a sign the race could be even closer this time, a Senate Republican Super PAC just put over $3 million into an ad campaign targeting Osborn. Dan Osborn joins me now. 

Osborn could win in Nebraska. If he wins, he'll caucus with the Democrats as an Independent, the way Senators Sanders and King do now.  

He was (and is) the Great Democratic Party Hope. But then, along came this unfortunate moment, originally reported by the Omaha World Herald:   

BASH (continuing directly): Thank you so much for being here. 

I do want to start with news out today in your state, and that is the Omaha World Herald reported on a leaked recording from a private event where you reportedly said this about some of President Trump's voters in Nebraska. Let's listen.

OSBORN (audiotape): Billy Bob in f***** Red Cloud, Nebraska, who lives next door to the f****** Trump store as you pull into town and is waving the Trump flag. He's just, he just— all he knows is he's like on the winning team. It's, it's really that simple. It is.

And, and Trump, and that is why he's been so effective. He's been so effective at taking Billy Bob and his wife Mary Jane or Mary Jo at telling them, "Look, we're winning. You're on the winning team," and that's all they care about because their lives probably suck so f***** bad.

BASH: First of all, just to confirm, is that you saying that?

OSBORN: It sure sounds like me.  

Ocborn goes on to explain. It sounds a bit shaky to us:

BASH (continuing directly): Is that what you think of Trump voters? 

OSBORN: No, I've talked to—I've talked to Trump voters all across the state. I'm on a 93-county tour right now. I've got 55 counties under my belt. I did over 200 public events in 2024 when Trump was on top of the ticket, and I talked to a lot of Trump voters. And no, that's not it. 

What I'm talking about, I'm talking about people are pissed off. People are disenfranchised...

The exchange continues from there. Eventually, Bash says this:   

BASH: In this audio, which you said sounds like you, though you use names like Billy Bob and Mary Jane or Mary Jo, you say that they just really want to be on a winning team because their lives suck so much. But the way that you talk here doesn't sound like you—doesn't sound very respectful. 

[...]

I mean, there's a lot of talk about this as your "Deplorables" moment.  

Or as his "little boxes on the hillside" moment? 

(We're assuming that really is him. He never says or suggests that it isn't.)  

We still hope Osborn will win and will help Democrats take control of the Senate. But we Blues sometimes have a hard time understanding this part of the way we sometimes tend to see the world. It's one of the ways we lose votes and with those votes, elections.

To listen to the audiotape, you can click here for its inclusion in a CNN report. For the Washington Post's report, click this.