WHAT IS MENTAL ILLNESS: Did the president post that crazy videotape?

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2025

Is the New York Times willing to ask? "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised!"

Way back in the 1970s, it was the title of a song, then of an album, by the late Gil Scott-Heron. We'll let the leading authority on the matter offer the basic background:

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is a satirical poem and Black Liberation song by Gil Scott-Heron. Scott-Heron first recorded it for his 1970 album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, on which he recited the lyrics, accompanied by congas and bongo drums. A re-recorded version, with a three-piece band, was the B-side to Scott-Heron's first single, "Home Is Where the Hatred Is", from his album Pieces of a Man (1971)...

It was also included on his compilation album, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (1974).

And so on, at length, from there. To hear the original recording, you can just click here.

That was more than fifty years ago. In the course of the deeply shocking last few days, we flashed on the Scott-Heron lyric. 

The times they have a-changed. Our contemporary adaptation of Scott-Heron's lyric would so something like this:

The truth about the demise of the American nation—imperfect though it always has been—will not be reported or discussed in the New York Times.

We single out the New York Times because of its dominant status within our own Blue America. In reality, the truth about the ongoing demise won't be reported in other key venues—on the corporate cable news channel MSNBC, to cite just one example.

Over the weekend and late last week, a great deal of shocking material clattered across our screen. Large chunks of "sane washing" occurred at the New York Times, where we've still seen no mention of the astounding event described in this report by Mediaite:

Trump Deletes Wild AI Video He Shared In Which He Promoted a Magic ‘Med Bed’ That Cures Diseases and Regrows Limbs

President Donald Trump has deleted a bizarre AI-generated video he shared in which he was seen promoting a magic bed which purportedly could cure all diseases.

The president, late Saturday night, shared the phony video on Truth Social, which shows him—on a fake Fox News broadcast of My View with Lara Trump—touting a “med bed” which has mythical healing powers.

“Every American will soon receive their own medbed card,” AI Trump said. “With it, you’ll have guaranteed access to our new hospitals led by the top doctors in the nation, equipped with the most advanced technology in the world. These facilities are safe, modern, and designed to restore every citizen to full health and strength. This is the beginning of a new era in American healthcare.”

[...]

A Fox News spokesperson quickly distanced the network from the phony video, telling Mediaite, “The video did not air on My View with Lara Trump on Fox News Channel or any other Fox News Media platforms.”

Say what? The most powerful man on the planet posted (then later deleted) "a bizarre AI-generated video in which he was seen promoting a magic bed which purportedly could cure all diseases?"

We first saw that astounding event reported at Mediaite. With apologies for the frequent childishness of that org's headlines, the original report had started like this:

Trump Posts an Absolutely Bonkers AI Video in Which He Promotes a Magic ‘Med Bed’ That Can Cure Any Disease

President Donald Trump shared a bizarre AI video to social media in which he’s seen promoting “med beds”—a far-right conspiracy involving a magical bed that can supposedly heal any sickness.

In a post to his Truth Social platform late Saturday night, Trump shared a phony, AI-generated Fox News clip—purportedly from Fox’s My View with Lara Trump—in which he’s seen rolling out this magic technology to hospitals nationwide.

“Every American will soon receive their own medbed card,” AI Trump said. “With it, you’ll have guaranteed access to our new hospitals led by the top doctors in the nation, equipped with the most advanced technology in the world.”

AI Trump went on to specifically tout the magic healing power of these fictional med beds.

We apologize for the childish headline. In our view, Mediaite would be a more credible news org if it abandoned that practice. 

At any rate, there it was—the start of the site's initial report about the bizarre Truth Social post. Videotape of the bizarre post can be seen as part of those two reports, though the bizarre post has now been deleted from the Truth Social site.

Full disclosure:

At this site, we weren't familiar with the term "med bed." We were only dimly aware of the existence of "a far-right conspiracy [theory] involving a magical bed that can supposedly heal any sickness."

Even fuller disclosure! These two reports at Mediaite seemed so bizarre that, for the first time we can recall, we wondered if we ourselves might be on the verge of reporting a major news event which would, in fact, turn out to have been based on some sort of a scam.

Had Mediaite been taken in? Plainly, the answer seems to be no! The Truth Social post has been removed, but as you can see in those reports from Mediaite, major medical specialists responded to the crazy post when it was still online. 

Also, to see CNN's report of this astounding event, you can just click here. A similar report by Forbes appears beneath this headline:

Trump Deletes Post Referencing Bizarre ‘Medbed’ Conspiracy Theory

For this morning's follow-up report by Newsweek, you can just click this. For a cogent summary by Heather Cox Richardson, you can just click here. 

And yes, it seems there was a pre-existing, lunatic clam of this type floating around within the realm of the various QAnon types. For Wikipedia's pre-existing report about this fantasy belief, we will direct you here.

In such ways, we've become convinced that this bizarre bit of videotape really did appear on the sitting president's Truth Social site. Also, though, we must tell you this:

We'll be surprised if any report of this bizarre event ever appears in the New York Times.

For whatever reason, the New York Times has exhibited a clear reluctance to come to terms with the sitting president's crazier bits of behavior. That said, what did appear in the New York Times in the past few days? 

What has appeared in the Times? Let us start to count:

This strange profile of the Fox News Channel's absurdly slippery Kat Timpf has now appeared in the Times. The profile of Timpf extends the frequent "sane washing" which major news orgs tend to provide to Greg Gutfeld, one of that channel's top ratings stars.

Also, the Times published this front-page report in Sunday's print editions about the way the Fox News Channel helps its employees sell their largely worthless books. This report may give readers the (false) impression that the Times is willing to report the most significant activities of that dominant "cable news" channel.

That impression would be false. 

In yesterday's print editions, the Times also published this report about recent conditions in Portland, Oregon—a city the president has now weirdly described as "War ravaged." 

Assuming basic accuracy, that report is quite informative. What you almost surely won't be seeing in the Times is any account of what Red America was instantly being told about this matter on Sunday morning's Fox & Friends Weekend—a scary account which flew in the face of what the Times was reporting.

Dearest darlings, use your heads! What happens on Fox stays on Fox! News orgs like the New York Times do in fact stay far away from such highly important reporting.

The revolution won't be televised? Whatever Scott-Herron meant by that iconic statement, the current demise of the American enterprise almost surely won't be reported in the New York Times. In our view, this leads to our basic question for this week:

What is mental illness?

What is mental illness? We've tried to stay away from that fraught term, in large part because of the unfortunate role the term tends to play within the American discourse. According to the leading authority, many medical specialists now prefer the less fraught term "mental disorder," perhaps for some of those very same reasons.

That said, plain speech is sometimes required. Judged by any traditional norm, the posting of that crazy Truth Social video about "med beds" would raise obvious questions about the mental health—about the fundamental "sanity"—of the person who chose to post it.

In a similar way, traditional norms would make us wonder about the mental health of the cable news star who made the remarks shown below. He made these remarks last Thursday on The Five, the American nation's most watched "cable news" show. 

As we noted on Saturday, this very strange man was speaking about Hillary Clinton:

GUTFELD (9/25/25):  You know, I don't know if you know this, Kennedy. That's the first time that Hillary has been on Morning Joe since the mysterious death of that intern.

OTHER PANELISTS: [Audible chuckling]

GUTFELD: I'm not saying anything, but I have to wonder—why is this old, ugly bag still around?

KENNEDY: Don't talk about Mika that way.

Speaking of Hillary Clinton's extremely cogent appearance on the previous day's Morning Joe, the cable star offered his latest "intern murder" jab. He then added this bit of analysis to the American discourse:

I have to wonder—why is this old, ugly bag still around?

So this person said. The reliably unfortunate Kennedy responded with an insult aimed at Mika Brzezinski. 

At that point, her 61-year-old male colleague went with this:

GUTFELD (continuing directly): I mean, that is so petty. That is so petty when I call her those things. But I'm not calling her a bigot, and I'm not calling her a Nazi. I'm just saying she's old and smelly and ugly. 

The fellow added this further bit of analysis:

I'm just saying [that Hillary Clinton] is old and smelly. 

She isn't just an ugly old bag, she's also old and smelly! At some point, it seems to us that basic questions of mental health must start to emerge about this person. But also, should questions start to emerge, at some point, about the mental functioning—not about the mental illness—of the people in Blue America who insist on pretending that this sort of thing isn't happening with this person, on a daily and nightly bass?

(Note: As we've told you again and again, you should remember to pity the child.)

We'll talk a bit more about what Gutfeld said in this afternoon's report. For today, we'll leave you with this:

We still don't know how that crazy "med bed" video found its way onto the Truth Social site. But by any normal modern standard, this obvious question arises:

Is the sitting American president in the grip of some form of mental illness? 

Blue orgs like the New York Times have agreed that such a question must never be asked. With such lunatic posts appearing on an increasingly regular basis, what can you say about the moral and intellectual functioning of the "highly educated" finer people who won't move beyond their initial stance even as they, and their failing nation, go hurtling over a cliff?

We'll talk about mental illness this week. We'll talk about what it is, and we'll talk about the unfortunate role the term and the topic often play in our unimpressive discoiurse.

For now, one additional point:

We had dreamed of writing this week under the following heading:

HUMAN

This very morning, we decided to switch to this:

WHAT IS MENTAL ILLNESS

We had dreamed of going with HUMAN because of this unintentionally humorous bit of reporting from the BBC (and from other major news orgs):

Million-year-old skull rewrites human evolution, scientists claim

A million-year-old human skull found in China suggests that our species, Homo sapiens, began to emerge at least half a million years earlier than we thought, researchers are claiming in a new study.

It also shows that we co-existed with other sister species, including Neanderthals, for much longer than we've come to believe, they say.

The scientists claim their analysis "totally changes" our understanding of human evolution and, if correct, it would certainly rewrite a key early chapter in our history.

But other experts in a field where disagreement over our emergence on the planet is rife, say that the new study's conclusions are plausible but far from certain.

We exalted members of Homo sapiens! We've had an extra half million years to attain the level of mental functioning our tribunes display, at the present time, as our nation slides down toward the sea. 

It turns out we've had a million years to get our mental functioning together! From the Fox News Channel to the New York Times, we'd call that a deeply sobering bit of anthropological news.

That Truth Social post would seem to have been flatly insane. The profile of Timpf in the New York times strikes us as the latest act of avoidance—as the latest bit of aggressive sane washing of the Fox News Channel.

Our president may be profoundly disordered. But our greatest newspaper, the New York Times, just keeps averting its gaze from him and from his most aggressive propagandists.

We've had a million years to do better! Is it what we first told you long ago? Is it too late to expect a good outcome here? Is it "all anthropology now?"

Tomorrow: In a bit of unintentional humor, the leading authority explains a key term—"Human"

This afternoon: A bit more on what Greg Gutfeld most recently said. 

We've long advised you to "pity the child." We think the time has come for his employers to get this guy some help.