TUESDAY: A banner headline in the Post...

TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2026

...brought a question to mind: Just this once, we're going to let you ask us about "mental illness."

Rather, about what used to be called "mental illness." According to the leading authority on the topic, the use of that term is falling into something which sounds like disfavor, with the term "mental disorder" now being used instead. 

Quoting from the leading authority: 

Most international clinical documents use the term mental "disorder," while "illness" is also common. It has been noted that using the term "mental" (i.e., of the mind) is not necessarily meant to imply separateness from the brain or body. 

Just this once, we're going to let you ask us. Rather, we find ourselves with a question for you. 

Our question was triggered, mere moments ago, by this banner headline atop the front page of the Washington Post's website:

U.S. closes three gulf embassies as Iran widens strikes

That's the banner at the Post, even as we type. Before we get to the question we're going to ask, we're going to make these admissions:

The decision to attack Iran was made by the sitting president. For the record, we have no way of knowing how this military action will, in the end, turn out.

We don't know where this war will take us. We don't know how it will come to be viewed in the future. 

Having made those admissions, we ask you this:

Was it wise to let the person in question be the decision-maker? Was it wise to do so without ever rescinding the ban on discussing the possibility that he has been, and still is, afflicted with some significant set of medical challenges / disorders?

Was it wise to maintain the code of silence around that possibility? In our view, there's no obvious answer to that question, given the difficulty we modern Americans would have had in discussing that particular topic.

At any rate, there sits the banner headline. Was it wise when our own Blue American orgs kept telling us this:

Nothing to look at or talk about! Just keep moving along!

SURROUNDINGS: Hegseth spilled with tribal anger!

TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2026

The segregation we've chosen: Yesterday morning, at 8 o'clock Eastern, Secretary Hegseth briefed the nation along with General Caine. As usual, he was annoyed by the sheer stupidity of the Lilliputians by whom he was surrounded. 

Six minutes into the Q-and-A session, General Caine answered a perfectly sensible question. It concerned a report that additional troops were being sent into the theater. 

That Q-and-A was perfectly sensible on both ends. Now, the secretary's rabbit ears had him responding to a different question.

How long was this military action likely to be? The question had been shouted out without being formally recognized, but Secretary Hegseth had heard it:

HEGSETH (3/2/26): I heard the question about "four weeks." It's the typical NBC sort of gotcha type question. 

President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take. Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks—it could move up, it could move back. We're going to execute, at his command, the objectives we've set out to achieve. And what he has shown ability to do, that other presidents can't quite seem to have the aperture to do—well, I mean, Joe Biden didn't even know what he was doing—is to look for opportunities and off ramps and escalations for the United States that creates new opportunities to execute what we need on our own timeline.

So you can play games about "four weeks, five weeks." He has all the latitude. And I'm glad he does, because there's no better communicator than our president expressing those things.

I've been in meetings with the president for the last two and a half days. We know exactly where his head space is, and he will communicate, as he should, exactly what he would like, and we will follow those orders. And I think everything he said on that is right down the middle. 

Whatever his possible merits might be, Hegseth is a bit of a hothead. In the current instance, his rabbit ears had heard a reporter "playing games" by trying to ask a "typical NBC gotcha type question." 

Also, under current rules of the tribal game, there could be no presser without a statement about what a dumbass former president Joe Biden had been. 

Hegseth is routinely peeved with the sheer stupidity of the others. Two minutes later, there he went again:

REPORTER: Secretary Hegseth, and one for Chairman Caine as well. I understand to your point here, that you don't want to broadcast everything for our adversaries to hear, but the American people also want to know what they're sending their men and women to war for. Is there a concern of this spiraling into a longer war? And then one for the chairman when you're done.

HEGSETH: Did you not hear my remarks? I mean, we're ensuring the mission gets accomplished, but we are very clear-eyed, as the president has been, unlike other presidents, about the foolish policies of the past that recklessly pulled us in, the things that were not tethered to actual clear objectives. 

So we know we have plans, we have generals, we have chairmans, we have commanders, CENTCOM commanders, Admiral Cooper, who's executing very deliberately to ensure outcomes that I laid out are accomplished. But we would never, in front of a press pool, lay out how long that may take. The mission for our war fighters, which is what matters to us, is very, very clear and they're executing it right now, violently. 

Why can't these idiots listen? Once again, the fellow was peeved.

In fairness, Hegseth's answer makes basic sense. What's striking is the hostility with which he delivered his answer—and the constant denigration of the "foolish policies of the past" advanced by those dumb other presidents.

Unlike the calm and professional General Caine, Secretary Hegseth is a bit of a hothead. He has the revolutionary fervor which can arise in the surroundings from which he emerged at the Fox News Channel.

Hegseth was working as co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend when President-elect Trump selected him to serve as Secretary of Defense. As such, Hegseth was deeply entrenched within the modern array of American "news orgs" built upon the principle of "segregation by viewpoint."

We now have Cable News Red and Cable News Blue, with CNN still trying to find some way to maintain some sort of tribal balance. Under current arrangements, the war fighters of our major "cable news" channels are kept separate, Red from Blue.

Rarely the twain shall meet. Unfortunately, the angry certainty voiced by Hegseth is part of the siloed segregation we've unwisely chosen

As is routine on the Fox News Channel, so too in Hegseth's remarks! To this day, it's rare to see participants expound on Fox News Channel programs without someone making mocking remarks about the dumbness of President Biden. Beyond that, the presumed bad faith and stupidity of Blue America is a constant part of the diet the Red American viewer is served. 

As usual, Hegseth was peeved with the NBC style gotcha questions at yesterday's press event. As usual, he broke from entrenched tradition, taking unsolicited shots at the foolish policies of the dumbbell presidents of the past.

This steady drumbeat of tribal attack is now a basic part of American journalistic culture. Luckily, Hegseth does know where the current president's "head space" is. He's also quite sure that "there's no better communicator than our president," and that everything that president has said "is right down the middle." 

In fairness, journalists sometimes do ask redundant questions. Also, the policies of past presidents have almost surely fallen short of some Platonic ideal. 

That said, an unsettling question about the sitting president arose on CNN just last Thursday night.  

Does Mary L. Trump have any idea what the heck she's talking about? For ourselves, we'd guess that she almost certainly does—but whether she does or whether she doesn't, this is again what she said:

ERIN BURNETT (2/26/26): You've known him your whole life. Do you actually see a [cognitive] decline?

MARY L. TRUMP: I do, but I think it's important to remember that Donald has never been fit in any capacity. Obviously, what we're dealing with now are age-related cognitive declines. We're dealing with physical issues that the White House tries to cover over.

But this is somebody who for decades now has had serious, undiagnosed and untreated psychiatric disorders, which are only going to worsen, especially given the pressure he's under and given the cognitive and physical declines. 

Say what? The doctorate-wielding clinical therapist said she sees a cognitive decline in her uncle, the sitting president. But she also said what she initially said in her best-selling 2020 book, Too Much and Never Enough:

She said her uncle "is somebody who for decades now has had serious, undiagnosed and untreated psychiatric disorders, which are only going to worsen." Last week, that very same sitting president launched a war against Iran. 

President Trump has launched a war against Iran. Opinions on the undertaking differ.

Yesterday, on the Fox News Channel's Will Cain Show, (retired) General Jack Keane offered a fascinating account of the past forty-plus years, expressing the view that the president's decision is long overdue. 

"Stop patronizing me," he gruffly told his host at one point, as Cain attempted to offer the standard thanks for the general's service.

General Keane apologized to Cain when the segment ended, but Cain's search for greater clarity about the actual goals of this mission had triggered a fascinating cable news segment. We'll recommend that you watch the full videotape, as offered by Mediaite. 

Even inside Silo Red, denunciations of the president's decision are now being heard. (Questions are even being asked, as Cain did this day.)

The current structure of American discourse has rarely produced disagreements within a tribe. Hegseth's views were never challenged by the other friends on Fox & Friends Weekend. Within this culture of viewpoint segregation, Hegseth's brand of angry certainty is likely to arise and take hold.

As we speak, the president has propelled us into a war which has perhaps been somewhat poorly explained. All week, we'll try to describe the surroundings of that fateful decision, including the anger and the tribal certainty exhibited by players like Hegseth.

For today, we'll offer one clear thought about the cultural practices surrounding the president's decision. That on clear thought would be this:

Twenty-four hour "cable news" has turned out be to be an extremely bad idea.

We'll also float this additional thought: 

We Blue Americans aren't as flawless as we occasionally may believe. 

Mary Trump has emerged again with what should be a troubling thought about the man she's known her whole life. From 2017 right through to today, Blue America's journalists and academics have agreed that a medical possibility of this type must not be discussed. 

We're left today with the possibility that the fateful decision to launch this war was made by a man afflicted with the unfortunate but dangerous medical conditions Mary Trump has described. When Dr. Bandy X. Lee offered similar thoughts in 2017, her own best-selling book got disappeared by the Blue American press, and she ended up losing her position at Yale.

We apologize for today's jumble—for the lack of one simple pure thought. We apologize for this grab bag of surroundings, but for those who are willing to stare into the sun, there are quite a few more surroundings to come.

Tomorrow: Joe Biden's recent speech?

MONDAY: Music critic in Amsterdam!

MONDAY, MARCH 2, 2026

Young music lover revealed: There was once a person who read a three-volume biographer of a famous composer and ended up writing this:

Everyone in the Annex except Mr. van Daan and Peter has read the Hungarian Rhapsody trilogy, a biography of the composer, piano virtuoso and child prodigy Franz Liszt. It's very interesting, though in my opinion there's a bit too much emphasis on women; Liszt was not only the greatest and most famous pianist of his time, he was also the biggest womanizer, even at the age of seventy. He had an affair with Countess Marie d' Agoult, Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, the dancer Lola Montez, the pianist Agnes Kingworth, the pianist Sophie Menter, the Circassian princess Olga Janina, Baroness Olga Meyen- dorff, actress Lilla what's-her-name, etc., etc., and there's no end to it. Those parts of the book dealing with music and the other arts are much more interesting... 

Yes, it's true! The writer was Anne Frank, then age 14, not long thereafter lost to the world thanks to the madness of that world, not long before the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. 

Anthony Tommasini, the former chief classical music critic of The New York Times, remembered this matter in a labor of love in yesterday's print editions of the Times. Dual headline included:

In the Secret Annex, Anne Frank’s Radio and a Love for Classical Music
Her diary overflows with her devotion to books and movies. But after rereading the entries, a critic was struck by how often she writes about music.

[...]

In June 1944, three days before she turned 15, and two months before the annex was raided and everyone arrested—of the group, Otto Frank, Anne’s father, would be the only survivor of the camps—Anne wrote enthusiastically about “Hungarian Rhapsody,” a three-volume biography of Franz Liszt that she had just finished reading. “Its very interesting, though in my opinion there’s a bit too much emphasis on women,” she says about Liszt’s prodigious womanizing. But she was captivated by the parts “dealing with music and the other arts,” stories of Schumann, Clara Wieck, Berlioz, Chopin, Victor Hugo, Anton Rubinstein, Rossini and Mendelssohn.

It's true! There was once a reader of that three-volume biography who preferred the parts about the music! Continuing directly, Tommasini offers this:

There is a poignant entry from April 1944 when Anne bonds over Mozart with Peter, the van Pels’s teenage son. Peter, almost three years older than Anne, did not make a good first impression on her. She found him “a shy, awkward boy whose company won’t amount to much.” Those feelings took root. Peter was lazy, obnoxious, “a dope” and “no one takes Peter seriously,” she wrote. Eighteen months of annex confinement changed her feelings; Peter’s too. They became smitten and, with grudging parental indulgence, spent private time together in the attic of the annex. Peter gave Anne her first kiss.

One day, they were in the attic listening to a Mozart concert on the “baby radio,” as Anne called a portable set. She was especially struck by the serenade for strings “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.” “I can hardly bear to listen in the kitchen,” she wrote, “since beautiful music stirs me to the very depths of my soul.”

Lost the world at age 15, thanks to the surrounding madness, with Peter van Pels lost too. Tommasini's rumination about his recent trip to Amsterdam continues:

The adolescent Anne’s growing immersion in classical music amid unimaginable hardships and daily fears preoccupied me during this trip to Amsterdam. Besides fulfilling a lifelong wish to visit the Anne Frank House, I went to concerts by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Netherlands Philharmonic, both at the acoustically marvelous Concertgebouw hall, built in the late 19th century. Anne, I thought, would have loved these performances.

It’s unlikely, though, that she ever made it to an orchestra program at the Concertgebouw. By 1941, when she was 11, Jews were barred from theaters of all kinds, along with libraries, museums, parks and more. By 13, she was in hiding. 

If you missed Tommasini rumination, you might want to consult it today. Amazingly, there were people who risked their lives, not just to provide their neighbors with food, but also to bring them books:

"Our meals consist almost entirely of potatoes and imitation gravy,” Anne wrote in her diary one day in 1944. But even during periods when food has hard to procure, the people risking their lives to provide for and shelter these hidden Jews—all employees of Otto’s pectin, spice and jam business—were able to bring them books: used books, library books, their own books, which were eagerly passed around.

Tommasini had "reread Anne Frank’s extraordinary diary before" his trip to Amsterdam. He "had somehow forgotten how regularly she brings up classical music."

We ourselves remain indebted to Francine Prose for her 2009 book, Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife, which vastly deepened our understanding of this remarkable episode in our human history.

As happenstance had it, Anne Frank happened to be a precocious child; Prose felt she had never received her due as a brilliant developing writer. Prose also tells the antique myth adjacent story of how Anne Frank's diary, and her other writings, escaped the fate of being lost at the time of her family's arrest. 

It's a story right out of antiquity, as Prose correctly notes.

SURROUNDINGS: The president made the fateful decision!

MONDAY, MARCH 2, 2026

But what were the surroundings? Last Friday night, we happened to sit up, awake, at roughly 1:30 a.m. On all three major "cable news" channels, the attack was already underway.

In Blue America, the decision to attack Iran has largely been challenged. In Red America, the assessments have generally been quite different. Indeed, consider this:

Twenty-four hours into this war, at 1:15 on Sunday morning, we saw a remarkably upbeat claim asserted once again.

Even at that late hour, the Fox News Channel was broadcasting live, with Jon Scott in the anchor chair. He spoke with Matt Terrill, introduced as former chief of staff to Marco Rubio's presidential campaign.

For the record, Secretary Rubio's presidential campaign ended in 2016. By way of contrast, Terrill's upbeat assessment of President Trump's decision was thoroughly up-to-date:

Here's what Terrill said:

SCOTT (3/1/26): [Secretary Rubio] was supposed to go to the Middle East this Tuesday. Do you think that that was a kind of a ruse? That the Iranians figured that they wouldn't have—that they wouldn't be seeing this kind of attack until at least after the secretary of state departed the region?

TERRILL: Well, Jon, is it possible that that was a head fake? Potentially! I'll let the administration speak to that. But this is a president, and Secretary Rubio, and an administration in general, that's playing four-dimensional chess...

The president's playing four-dimensional chess? So said the upbeat Terrill, on Red America's official news channel.

As you may recall, Joey Jones had offered a similar assessment, on the Fox News Channel's Big Weekend Show, just one week before:

JONES (2/21/26): You know, [the Democrats] play this game that's— They're not very good at it, I don't think.

President Trump is smarter than they are. He's playing checkers, they're playing— or, He's playing chess, they're playing checkers.

Jones had said that one week earlier. Now, the sitting president was said to be playing chess again—and there's no way to prove that that's wrong.

Has President Trump been playing chess while others are playing checkers? It hasn't always looked that way to us! For starters, consider the banner headline across the top of the front page of this morning's New York Times:

U.S. TROOPS KILLED AS BLASTS JOLT MIDEAST; FEAR OF WIDER WAR AFTER IRAN’S RESPONSE
Trump Says He’s Willing to Talk to Tehran’s New Leadership

Say what? The president has said that he's willing to talk to Iran's new leaders?

Indeed, the president told The Atlantic, on Sunday night, that he's willing to return to negotiations! He had just killed forty of the Iranian regime's previous leaders—and now he was willing to talk to whoever's left!

Rightly or wrongly, that almost seemed a bit odd to us. It didn't exactly seem to make sense, although we could always be wrong. 

Then too, Jonathan Karl has now tweeted this:

Jonathan Karl
@jonkarl

Pres Trump told me [on Sunday night] the US had identified possible candidates to take over Iran, but they were killed in the initial attack.

"The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates," Trump told me. "It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead."

Just our luck! The president had replacements in mind for the post of Supreme Leader. But in the course of his first attack, he managed to kill the top three!

In fairness, things like that can happen. But even before the attack commenced, the president had oddly described the magic or secret words he was longing to hear.

Once again, we offer Jonathan Karl, reporting what the president said to a group of network news anchors during a preview of last Tuesday's State of the Union address. You can see Karl make his report at this report by The Wrap:

KARL (2/24/26): One notable thing, we did talk about Iran. He said that "Iran wants a deal more than I do," but they just can’t say the magic words, which he said was that they won’t build a bomb.

They just can’t say the magic words! But was that a direct quote?

We aren't completely sure about that. But that evening, in the address itself, the president used a slightly different term of art:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (2/24/26): They’ve already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America. After Midnight Hammer, they were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, in particular nuclear weapons, yet they continue. They’re starting it all over.

We wiped it out, and they want to start over again, and are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions. We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal but we haven’t heard those secret words: “We will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Again, the president said he'd never heard those magic or secret words. But did that seem to make sense?

Hasn't the regime in Iran always said that it doesn't seek to have nuclear weapons? And since no one believes what the regime's leaders say, what difference would it have made if he had heard those secret or magic words—if the Iranians had made that pledge?

For ourselves, we don't hear four-dimensional chess being played by this president. In fairness, that doesn't prove that he has made the wrong decision with respect to this war. It doesn't tell us what history will say about this war, if history as we've always known it will continue to exist.

For ourselves, we don't have confidence in this president's judgment, which doesn't mean that his judgment was wrong in this case. In part, we lack confidence in his judgment because we find it easy to believe what his niece said, on CNN, just last Thursday night.

In Saturday's report, we showed you what she said. We know of no obvious reason to assume that her assessment is wrong, which doesn't prove that it's right:

ERIN BURNETT (2/26/26): You've known him your whole life. Do you actually see a [cognitive] decline?

MARY L. TRUMP: I do, but I think it's important to remember that Donald has never been fit in any capacity. Obviously, what we're dealing with now are age-related cognitive declines. We're dealing with physical issues that the White House tries to cover over.

But this is somebody who for decades now has had serious, undiagnosed and untreated psychiatric disorders, which are only going to worsen, especially given the pressure he's under and given the cognitive and physical declines.

The fact that she said it doesn't mean that it's true. But his niece, the doctorate-wielding clinical therapist, said she sees a cognitive decline layered on top of life-long "psychiatric disorders."

Within this political context, we vastly prefer the term "medical." But a sitting president was making a very important decision even as that was being said. 

We don't know how the president's decision will turn out. We do know certain things about the decision's surroundings.

What do we mean when we refer to the decision's "surroundings?" We're speaking about the rapidly crashing national culture within which that perilous decision was finally made:

We're thinking of his niece's statement last Thursday night. We're thinking of a speech President Biden made, in South Carolina, on that very same evening.

We're thinking of the moral and intellectual squalor which suffused the Fox News Channel in the weeks leading to that decision. We're thinking of the refusal of Blue America's major news organs to report and discus that astonishing level of journalistic disorder.

We're thinking of the ludicrous state into which the State of the Union had fallen as of last Tuesday night. We're thinking of the need to builds a culture war out of a (very good) hockey game.

We're thinking of this opinion piece by Alex Griffing of Mediate—an opinion piece in which Griffing examines the type of serious policy issue we Americans no longer discuss. We're thinking of the way CNN and the Fox News Channel spent the weeks leading up to this war talking about almost nothing except a (tragic) missing person case concerning which nothing was known.

We're thinking of the crazy claims this president won't stop making. We're thinking of the crazy things he routinely posts on his Truth Social site, very late at night.

We're thinking of his birther years. We're thinking of the southern border during the Biden years, and of what was said about it—including by President Biden himself, just this past Thursday night.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but our rapidly failing American culture is an embarrassment and a danger. The decision emerged from these gruesome surroundings. We Blues are a part of that too!

Tomorrow: We'll probably have to start right there

SATURDAY: Mary Trump joins David Brooks!

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2026

The history of the era: History is moving quickly today, as you already know. We wish this was a more appropriate time for this morning's task, but if we might borrow from Donald Rumsfeld:

You report the intellectual history of your era within the time frame you have:

In last Saturday morning's report, we reported what David Brooks said.  Had we always known that David Brooks would be the one to break the rule about medical language? 

Possibly yes and possibly no—but right there on the previous night's PBS NewsHour, this was what he had said:

GEOFF BENNETT (2/20/26): Is there a point at which the president's rhetoric—maybe we're already there—becomes corrosive to the institution itself?

BROOKS: Well, Donald Trump has never had an honest disagreement with somebody. And where you say, "Oh, I disagree with you," and without him going ad hominem.

And that is just his nature. It is the nature of somebody with a narcissistic personality disorder to think, "I am the center, and everything that's an assault on me cannot be anything but a shameful attack on all that is right and good." 

Is the sitting president afflicted with the medical condition known as "narcissistic personality disorder?" Might that be a reasonable clinical diagnosis? 

We can't answer that question, but Brooks, a major mainstream journalist, was advancing that assessment. By using that technical medical language, he was also breaking every rule in the journalistic book.

At long last, Brooks had decided to abandon a basic rule of the guild—and dear God! This past Thursday night, Mary Trump, the president's niece, broke that same rule during an interview on CNN. 

Mary Trump joined David Brooks! When she spoke with CNN's Erin Burnett, this exchange occurred:

BURNETT (2/26/26): A number of polls are now showing that Americans are increasingly questioning [the president's\ mental state. ... 

We're talking about a possible war about to happen, right? So, people are thinking about it. 

Reuters/Ipsos has a poll saying 61 percent of Americans agree that Trump has become erratic with age—61 percent. Thirty percent of Republicans agreed with that. ABC/Washington Post/Ipsos poll last week had 56 percent saying Trump doesn't have the mental sharpness to serve effectively. That's up thirteen points since May 2023.

I mean, that's an incredible jump. ...You've known him your whole life. Do you actually see a decline?

M. TRUMP: I do, but I think it's important to remember that Donald has never been fit in any capacity. Obviously, what we're dealing with now are age-related cognitive declines. We're dealing with physical issues that the White House tries to cover over.

But this is somebody who for decades now has had serious, undiagnosed and untreated psychiatric disorders, which are only going to worsen, especially given the pressure he's under and given the cognitive and physical declines. So it's great that the majority of the American people are starting to wake up to this. But I have to say, it's a long time coming.

BURNETT: All right. Well, Mary, I appreciate you, and it's good to see you again. 

The fact that she said it doesn't mean that it's right. But that's what Mary Trump said, right there on CNN.

For ourselves, we never use the word "psychiatric." We use the word "medical" instead. Here's why:

Psychiatry is a (conceptually complex) branch of modern medical science. The leading authority on the topic puts it like this: "Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, mood, emotion, and behavior."

The (accurate) term which Mary Trump chose to use tends to shut down further discussion. The kinder/gentler term "medical" doesn't have that same effect. 

That said, it had been a long time since we saw Mary Trump, on cable TV, following the trail she blazed in her 2020 best-selling family memoir, Too Much and Never Enough. 

Mary Trump holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. She's an experienced clinical therapist. 

That doesn't mean that her assessments concerning her uncle just have to be correct. But in that best-selling book, she had offered far-reaching diagnostic assessments of her uncle—assessments we have reposted many times. 

Specifically, she had said he met every criterion for a clinical diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. She said he also seemed to meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, "which in its most severe form is generally considered sociopathy." 

As she continued, she seemed to say that her uncle was likely afflicted by quite a few other "pathologies." 

The fact that she said it didn't make it correct—but the American press corps has long observed a rule which forbids such medical assessments with respect to political figures. After Mary Trump's book appeared, cable news host avoided discussing those diagnostic assessments in her many cable interviews. 

This past Thursday, those technical assessments were back! Burnett didn't seem to be surprised by what her guest said, and she didn't offer any disclaimers.

Is the sitting president afflicted by conditions which are still often referred to as "mental illnesses?" We would guess that the answer is yes, but we have no training and no experience in this area. 

Given the president's erratic behavior, we do think that Mary Trump was right when she made these remarks:

It's great that the majority of the American people are starting to wake up to this. But I have to say, it's a long time coming.

We think it's the American press corps, not the American electorate, which may be "starting to wake up to" the deeply unfortunate possibilities in question here. That said, it has been "a long time coming." 

For better or worse, these possibilities have been disappeared dating back to Dr. Bandy X. Lee's 2017 best-seller. And as Burnett said to Mary Trump:

We're talking about a possible war about to happen, right?

We've long advised you to "pity the child" with respect to such unfortunate matters. It's also true that a person afflicted with a diagnosable "personality disorder" may make perfectly reasonable decisions in particular circumstances.

Of course, some such state of affairs may also be quite dangerous. And tragically but unmistakably, the sitting president has been quite erratic in thought, word and deed.

The president has seemed to be quite erratic. First with Brooks, then with Mary Trump's exchange with Burnett, we may be seeing the upper-end press corps struggling to break away from a self-imposed conceptual straitjacket.

This is part of the unimpressive intellectual history of this deeply troubled era. Even on this difficult day, we think it should be recorded. 

("Somewhere ages and ages hence," someone may find this of value.)

STATE OF THE (DIS)UNION: This tilts toward what we've been talking about!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2026

How far will they go, we've asked: On this somewhat disturbing day, we'll be away from our sprawling campus until mid-afternoon. That said:

How far will this administration be willing to go with respect to November's elections? We asked that question at the start of the week, and now this report has arrived in the Washington Post:

Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency

Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue. The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s plans.

“Under the Constitution, it’s the legislatures and states that really control how a state conducts its elections, and the president doesn’t have any power to do that,” said Peter Ticktin, a Florida lawyer who is advocating for the draft executive order. Ticktin attended the New York Military Academy with Trump and was part of his legal team that filed an unsuccessful 2022 lawsuit accusing Democrats of conspiring to damage him with allegations that his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.

“But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes,” Ticktin went on. “That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it.”

The emergency would empower the president to ban mail ballots and voting machines as the vectors of foreign interference, Ticktin argued.

The idea of claiming emergency executive powers based on allegations of foreign interference attaches new significance to the administration’s actions to reinvestigate the 2020 election. Trump has never accepted defeat, while never finding evidence of widespread fraud. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is leading a review of election security that officials said focuses on foreign influence.

And so on from there. 

How serious is this proposal? Does it represent something resembling an actual White House inclination? Is Pete Ticktin the real deal? Is he possibly just a flake?

We can't answer those questions. The Post's Isaac Arnsdorf goes on at some length, offering background information, but he doesn't seem to know at this point.

That said, we regard this as a deeply dangerous time. Ticklin may just be floating a dream—or then again, possibly not.

We ourselves are heading off to the medical mission today. We may resume these ruminations by mid-afternoon.

For those lacking access to the full report in the Washington Post, here's the overview from Mediaite, written by Isaac Schorr:

Trump Reportedly Mulling Plan to Declare ‘National Emergency’ Paving Way for Major Power Grab

The Washington Post reported that activists are working with the White House on an executive order to declare a “national emergency” over America’s elections and pave the way for a power grab.

“Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting,” reported the Post‘s Isaac Arnsdorf. “President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue.”

Peter Ticktin, a MAGA activist in favor of the executive order, told the Post that “we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes,” and that “the president has to be able to deal with it,” including by banning mail-in ballots and certain voting machines.

That headline and lede seem a bit overstated. At any rate, the report continues from there.

THURSDAY: The state of the union is towel-snapping...

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2026

...with Blue American silence thrown in: Thinking back to this morning's report, the most remarkable part of this mess is the fact that Blue America has so totally agreed to roll over and accept it.

Through whatever batch of internal wiring, there will always be someone like Greg Gutfeld—someone who's eager to give angry voice to his misogyny-agency complaints. (We've suggested that his owners ought to get him some help.)

Every so often, someone like Jesse Watters will come along—someone inclined to voice such silly clatter as this about the State of the Union event:

WATTERS (2/25/26): It's also a great format for the president because the Republicans are just better looking. All of the cutaways to these Democrats—it's sad. It is a sad look. Our cabinet is more attractive. The Trump family is more attractive. I'm sorry—it's just the truth.

Also, Trump loves awards. It's become an award show now. You get a Medal of Freedom, you get a Medal of Honor. This person got a tax refund, she got fertility drugs.

It's like him hosting an awards show now, which is great, and that is why it's so fun...

"The Republicans are just better looking." Yes, that's what he said. 

Regarding the "fun" of the current State of the Union format, there's a great deal more to be said.

Performers like these have come along—and Fox News saw an opening. Through their mélange of apparent misogyny, "insult comedy" and utterly silly chatter, Watters and Gutfeld now drive three of the four most watched programs in American "cable news." 

(The other most-watched show also belongs to Fox, as you can see in the list below.)

For the record, these aren't just the most-watched shows; they're most watched programs by far. Over at Mediaite, Sean James delivers the mail, starting with the basics:

Fox News Romps Over Cable Competition in February, Scores 35% More Viewers Than CNN and MS NOW Combined 

,,,Fox News once again smoked its competition in February.

New Nielsen data obtained by Mediaite shows Fox News averaged 34% more primetime viewers and 35% more total day viewers than CNN and MS NOW combined this month.

Fox News averaged 2.61 million primetime viewers between Monday and Sunday—compared to 1.94 million for both CNN and MS NOW—and that figure jumped to 3.07 million viewers when just looking at primetime viewership during the week. 

Those early numbers for February show Fox News programs with 35% more viewers than the other two cables combined! When it comes to viewership for the most-watched weeknight shows, the five top shows look like this:

Average viewers, nightly cable news programs:
The Five: 4.00 million
Jesse Watters Primetime: 3.44 million
Special Report with Bret Baier: 3.10 million
Gutfeld!: 3.04 million
The Ingraham Angle: 2.90 million

All five shows are from Fox News. Hannity is a smidgeon behind Laura Ingraham at #6. 

At MS NOW, The Rachel Maddow Show checks in with 2.38 million viewers, but the program airs just once a week. At MS NOW, Lawrence O'Donnell has the most-watched full week program (1.47 million). 

At CNN, Anderson Cooper tops the list (908,000).

With respect to programs like The Five, Watters Primetime and Gutfeld!, no serious person could seriously claim that they're actual "news" shows. We'd call them propaganda messaging programs, with plenty of clowning mixed in.

There's more to say about these matters, but for today we're tired. That said:

The state of the union is very poor in the cable news department. At Fox, the state of the union is fawning and clowning and plenty of insults, with the New York Times' silence thrown in.

STATE OF THE (DIS)UNION: She's "not unattractive," Gutfeld says!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2026

Fox News [HEART] the State of the Union: Yesterday, shortly after 5 p.m., Jesse Watters was explaining why he loves the annual State of the Union address.

He's been described as "the silliest child" in the history of American TV news. Now, he began to lay out his thinking:

WATTERS (2/25/26): I love State of the Union Trump. I think it's better than Rally Trump, better than Sit Down Interview Trump, even better than "[Gutfeld!] Show Trump."

This guy owns this format. Because there's a physical division right in the middle of the chamber. So he creates a moment, then exploits the moment to get a reaction from the Democrats and the reaction proves his point. He accentuates it so deliciously that the Democrats are baited into going where they don't want to go...

In Watters' view, the sitting president "exploits" the situation, deliciously baiting the Democrats! More on that another day. We thought that first word choice was apt.

Before he was done, the thoughtful analyst further explained his (current) love for the time-honored State of the Union format—and yes, he made these "silly boy" comments:

WATTERS: It's also a great format for the president because the Republicans are just better looking. All of the cutaways to these Democrats—it's sad. It is a sad look. Our cabinet is more attractive. The Trump family is more attractive. I'm sorry—it's just the truth. 

Also, Trump loves awards. It's become an award show now. You get a Medal of Freedom, you get a Medal of Honor. This person got a tax refund, she got fertility drugs.

It's like him hosting an awards show now which is great, and that is why it's so fun...

No, we haven't made that up. According to Watters, the annual address is a lot of fun because it's like "an award show now." Also, the format is great for President Trump because Republicans "are just better looking."

Yes, he actually said that! In fairness, let this be said:

On The Five but also on Jesse Watters Primetime, Watters slides in and out of a slithery performance style. Routinely, he transitions from attempts at straight analysis into an undisguised, self-deprecating "simpleton" comic persona. 

That comic persona is part of his standard approach. But to our eye, he was completely serious in his comments about which cabinet, family and political party is just plain "better looking."

As you know, this analysis was being offered on our rapidly failing nation's most watched "cable news" program. (This afternoon, we'll run through the latest viewership numbers.)

To our eye, the silly lad seemed completely sincere as he told four million viewers that Republicans are just better looking—"more attractive"—than Dems. During this same pathetic segment, Greg Gutfeld mused about the physical appearance of Rep. Ilhan Omar, who we would score as highly telegenic, based on conventional norms:

GUTFELD: I have to point out—Ilhan Omar. She repulses me, and I'm trying to figure out why, because she's not unattractive.

She has an unusual amount and kind of anger. She has no right to that level of rage in the United States of America, the country who gave her corrupt ass a new life...She should be kissing the ground she walks on rather than spitting on it.

Her anger also reminds me of the radical who, given power, would destroy you. She would show no mercy for you if you were below her. Like, the look on her face is somebody who would step on your face instead of giving you a hand, and that is not the kind of person we should have in our leadership. It's not the type of person we should have in this country...

For the record, we've often said that this angry, incel-adjacent man seems to need some help. We've also said that he deserves that help. and his employer should provide it. 

That said:

Like the young native-born Nebraska men in Willa Cather's My Antonia, Gutfeld has noticed the fact that this immigrant (refugee) woman is actually "not unattractive." (Text from Cather below.) That said, he's puzzled by his reaction to the Minnesota congressional rep.

Despite the fact that she's "not unattractive," he says he finds her repulsive--and he says he wants to find out why. As it turns out, he bases his assessment on "the look on her face"—the face he almost admits to find attractive—and after he shares his fearful fantasies with four million or more Red American viewers, he reaches his final assessment: 

Rep. Omar is not the type of person we should have in this country. 

Let us say this about that: 

Rep. Omar isn't exactly "in our [dissolving nation's] leadership." She is in the United States House of Representatives, and that's because she keeps getting elected to that position, by people who are still allowed to reside in Young Master Gutfeld's country.

We refer to the voters in Minnesota's Fifth Congressional District—a suburban district whose population was recently listed as shown below by the Cook Political Report:

Minnesota Fifth Congressional District
White: 59.9%
Black: 17.1%
Hispanic: 10.1 %
Asian: 6.1%
Two or more races: 5.2%

The district keeps electing Rep. Omar with 74 percent of the vote. That said, the largest demographic group in the district is Gutfeld's own "color." According to the leading authority on the district, Somalis make up three (3) percent of the district's population.

Putting it a different way, there seem to be a lot of people who don't see the look on Omar's face which this corporate messaging agent sees. To his credit, he says he wants to find out why he sees what these others don't. 

Just for the record, this $9 million per year corporate employee is rarely shy about letting his Omar-related demons emerge. A few minutes earlier, he had already made the comment shown below as he offered his own dumbed-down remarks about why he loved Tuesday night's State of the Union address: 

GUTFELD: It's almost two hours long, this thing. I felt like Trump is like a maître d' at a restaurant who is so proud of the specials that he's going to go through them whether you like it or not:

"I've got the veal scallopini, I got the lobster thermidor, I got the quail surf and turf. If you need to lose some weight, we got the Cobb salad—and for Ilhan, we've got some goat on the menu.

PANEL: [Appreciative laughter]

That was before he told the world how repulsive he finds Rep. Omar, even though she's "not unattractive."

Question:

Will he ever go to that Fifth Congressional District to ask the people who were once his fellow citizens about the look they see on Rep. Omar's face?  We'll guess that the answer is no. Sadly, this is the way the possibility of union ends, not with a bang but with a strangely frightened confession, amounting perhaps to a type of a whimper

It's the look he sees on Omar's face—on a face which is not unattractive! Five hours later, he drove his own Gutfeld! show along, as he quite routinely does, with the frequently debunked claim that Rep. Omar once married her brother, but also with a typical jibe about smelly Somali food.

This is who and what he currently is. Fox pays him to behave this way.

The stooges around him happily laughed. The baldly secessionist Fox News Channel makes its money by hiring and paying the kinds of people who are inclined to play such games.

We have no major opinion about Rep. Omar, who's one among 435. We do know that several of the world's top female models have been woman of Somali ancestry, starting with Imam herself.

Somali women have often been judged to be unusually beautiful. With apologies to Rep. Omar, Brother Gutfeld may be struggling with what he doesn't want to see on that perhaps attractive face. 

We hoped to talk today about some of the astonishing claims the president made at that State of the Union address. The (familiar) misstatement referenced in this Mediaite report was especially astounding, as it long has been. 

In fairness, we've long suggested that the sitting president does in fact seem to be some (serious) version of what used to be called "mentally ill." (Many around him strike us in a similar way.)

We'll get to that another day. For now, let's return to the Nebraska of the late 19th century, keeping Herr Gutfeld in mind:

Last Saturday, we discussed the pleasure Willa Cather's narrator took as he saw his community's "immigrant girls" rise to become the mistresses of Nebraska's largest farms. 

To our mind, another part of the chapter in question described an even more fascinating matter—the way the native-born boys of the fictional Black Hawk lacked the courage to act on their attraction to those physically beautiful, spiritually vibrant Bohemian and Danish girls.

Cather's narrator was named Jim Burden. (He's a gender-shifted version of Cather herself.) This morning, Burden speaks again:

My Antonia: Book Two, Chapter IX

There was a curious social situation in Black Hawk. All the young men felt the attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls who had come to town to earn a living, and, in nearly every case, to help the father struggle out of debt, or to make it possible for the younger children of the family to go to school.

Those girls had grown up in the first bitter-hard times, and had got little schooling themselves. But the younger brothers and sisters, for whom they made such sacrifices and who have had ‘advantages,’ never seem to me, when I meet them now, half as interesting or as well educated. The older girls, who helped to break up the wild sod, learned so much from life, from poverty, from their mothers and grandmothers; they had all, like Ántonia, been early awakened and made observant by coming at a tender age from an old country to a new.

I can remember a score of these country girls who were in service in Black Hawk during the few years I lived there, and I can remember something unusual and engaging about each of them. Physically they were almost a race apart, and out-of-door work had given them a vigor which, when they got over their first shyness on coming to town, developed into a positive carriage and freedom of movement, and made them conspicuous among Black Hawk women.

[...]

The Black Hawk boys looked forward to marrying Black Hawk girls, and living in a brand-new little house with best chairs that must not be sat upon, and hand-painted china that must not be used. But sometimes a young fellow would look up from his ledger, or out through the grating of his father’s bank, and let his eyes follow Lena Lingard, as she passed the window with her slow, undulating walk, or Tiny Soderball, tripping by in her short skirt and striped stockings.

The country girls were considered a menace to the social order. Their beauty shone out too boldly against a conventional background. But anxious mothers need have felt no alarm. They mistook the mettle of their sons. The respect for respectability was stronger than any desire in Black Hawk youth.

Our young man of position was like the son of a royal house; the boy who swept out his office or drove his delivery wagon might frolic with the jolly country girls, but he himself must sit all evening in a plush parlor where conversation dragged so perceptibly that the father often came in and made blundering efforts to warm up the atmosphere. On his way home from his dull call, he would perhaps meet Tony and Lena, coming along the sidewalk whispering to each other, or the three Bohemian Marys in their long plush coats and caps, comporting themselves with a dignity that only made their eventful histories the more piquant. If he went to the hotel to see a travelling man on business, there was Tiny, arching her shoulders at him like a kitten. If he went into the laundry to get his collars, there were the four Danish girls, smiling up from their ironing-boards, with their white throats and their pink cheeks.

[We skip past an individual story]

Sylvester dallied about Lena until he began to make mistakes in his work; had to stay at the bank until after dark to make his books balance. He was daft about her, and everyone knew it. To escape from his predicament he ran away with a widow six years older than himself, who owned a half-section. This remedy worked, apparently. He never looked at Lena again, nor lifted his eyes as he ceremoniously tipped his hat when he happened to meet her on the sidewalk.

So that was what they were like, I thought, these white-handed, high-collared clerks and bookkeepers! I used to glare at young Lovett from a distance and only wished I had some way of showing my contempt for him.

We don't recommend feeling or showing contempt for those young men. Instead, we advise you to pity the native-born boys who could see the vibrant beauty of the immigrant girls but were unable to act.

We thought of this favorite passage as Gutfeld mused last night. We advise you to pity the rapidly failing union which has fellows like these on the air as we Blues avert our gaze.

He attacks the smelly food she eats. He freely attacks her alleged "corrupt ass." He endlessly plays the incest card. He's oddly repulsed by her face.

Still coming: At long last, has he no shame?

Also, the 1962 U.S. Soviet meet, plus last weekend's hockey game

WEDNESDAY: Aliyah Rahman, in D.C.!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2026

Marimar Martinez as well: We plan to return to the State of the Union address—mainly, to the state of the union itself—starting tomorrow morning. 

Within the next few days, we even plan to take you to the so-called "Greatest Track Meet of All Time"—the legendary US-Soviet Union meet, held right there, over two days, in jam-packed Stanford Stadium. 

Thanks to one of our all-time best friends, we sat there, "just a kid like you," all through the course of that weekend. We were cheering the Americans on—though as it turned out, the most memorable and important part of that meet occurred after the whole thing was over. 

In recent days, inane tribal warfare on "cable news" brought that event back to mind.

(Good God! Bob Hayes and Wilma Rudolph won the men's and women's 100! Those are legendary names in the annals of American sports. Rudolph's name is sacred.)

A great deal remains to be said about the dangerous state of our union. Today, we stumbled upon yesterday's report from The Mirror about two women who came to D.C. this week.

We wrote about Aliya Rahman in real time, back when she was ripped from her car and hauled away, in extremely rough fashion, by the boys who weren't in blue. 

Rahman came to the District this week. Headline included, The Mirror's report starts as shown:

Disabled Minneapolis woman dragged from car by ICE reveals disturbing details of injuries

A woman who was dragged from her car by ICE agents in Minneapolis said she suffered severe damage in her shoulders.

Aliya Rahman was driving to an appointment at a traumatic brain injury clinic on January 13 when she was pulled from her car by ICE agents. Rahman, who has autism, found herself caught in a traffic jam and explained to agents who told her to move her car that she was unable to process their instructions. She was dragged from her vehicle, with footage of the incident quickly circulating online.

Rahman will accompany Minnesota Rep Ilhan Omar at the State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Rahman spoke to MS Now ahead of the event, and described the fallout from the violent incident last month.

“I have spent the last month learning the names of the tendons in my shoulder, because both of my shoulders are torn—cartilage and tendons. But what I haven't learned is the names of the people who did this to me,” Rahman said.

And so on from there. As the videotape made clear, her treatment was extremely rough on the day in question.

Rahman came to D.C. this week. So did Marimar Martinez, who somehow managed to survive despite being shot five times:

Marimar Martinez, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen who was shot five times by Border Patrol agents last October, will also be in attendance at the event on Tuesday night.

Martinez graciously accepted the invitation to accompany Illinois Rep Jesús “Chuy” García, writing in a statement, “I look forward to attending the State of the Union and hope the country can look at what happened to me and other victims of DHS’s unlawful behavior as a basis to call their elected representatives and demand accountability.” 

So reported The Mirror. For the record, after Martinez was shot five times, the apparent lying began, given voice by the agent who shot her.

Martinez was shot five times; somehow, she survived. Rahman was ripped from her car—to appearances, she was stuck in traffic—and hauled off through the streets.

We saw The Mirror's report a day too late, but these events should not be forgotten. We leave you with the question we offered this morning:

How far will this administration possibly be willing to go in November of this year? To be honest, none of us has any idea how to answer that question. 

We're living in a dangerous time. There's no way to answer that question.

Fuller disclosure: Valeriy Brumel was on the scene at Stanford too.  Fosbury hadn't yet invented the flop. 

Brumel set a new world record. According to this later report, the ovation went on for five minutes.

STATE OF THE (DIS)UNION: The state of the union is tribal!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2026

What's going to happen this fall? After last night's public event, our own assessment would have to be this:

The state of the union is tribal.

More precisely, the state of the union is deeply tribal. Indeed, "if we've learned anything from history"—there's little reason to assume that we have—this deeply tribal state of affairs is also deeply dangerous. 

Despite instant reassurance from today's Morning Joe, we invite you to ponder this:

We the people have no idea what will happen this fall. We have no way of knowing how far the current administration will perhaps be willing to go.

We have no way of knowing if anything resembling normal elections will take place in November. If it seems like large segments of the population have been scared away from the polls, we have no way of knowing how Blue America will (or should) react.

Also, incipient war with Iran? We have no way to know about that!

Having made those observations, let's return to the current state of the union. The current state of the union is tribal, but it goes well beyond that.

The state of the union also seems to be delusional—and for those who believe in medical science, we mean, in some cases, that in the clinical sense.

The state of the union seems to involve the types of syndrome which were once known as "mental illness." 

(According to the leading authority, that language has fallen into disfavor within the global medical realm. The nature of the problem remains.)

The standard groaning misstatements were present last night, with one side of the famous chamber lustily cheering them on. We'll have more on this in the next few days, though we'd have to say that the widespread dislocation afflicts our own Blue America too.

Does the president believe the things he says? That has never been clear to us, one way or the other. 

But then, there's the counter reaction from our own Blue American elites. Mediaite presents a report on the instant reaction to last night's event from our own tribe's "cable news" entity:

‘Violence Porn’: Maddow Says Trump ‘Luxuriated’ In Describing the ‘Goriest Things’ In History of The SOTU 

Rachel Maddow called out President Donald Trump for “violent pornographic riffing” in his State of the Union address, claiming his speech “luxuriated” in gory details of brutal events.

Maddow characterized the president’s demeanor during the address on Tuesday as “wound up and weird,” playing a clip from early on in the speech to characterize her point. The MS NOW host called Trump’s repeated claims of a thriving economy “lies,” telling viewers that the president’s pacing was an important area of focus.

“The president didn’t seem very invested in the lies that he was telling about the economy, but he did list a whole bunch of them right off the bat. But as I say, some of the takeaway there, I think, is mostly going to be his pace and his freneticism,” she said.

And so on from there.

For the record, it's true! The president was weirdly frenetic at the start of last night's address. Just a guess:

He's accustomed to his performance style at his rallies, where he's free to make any claim which enters his head. He's also accustomed to his performance style at his Oval Office / Air Force One press events, where he simply insults any reporter who poses an unwanted question. 

Given the setting, he was perhaps a bit unsure of himself at the start of last night's address—but before long, he was back in the saddle again. As Maddow later noted, the "freneticism" disappeared.

That said:

When Maddow refers to the president's "lies," she assumes he knows that his wildly inaccurate statements are false. Medical realities being what they are, we can't say that we ourselves are totally sure about that. 

But as she continued—Mediaite presents healthy chunks of text and tape—we'd say that Maddow majorly missed the point of the president's enduring appeal within the streets of our flailing nation's Red America.

On this morning's Morning Joe, at exactly 6:03 a.m., Joe Scarborough, who's very sharp, offered the standard dodge about those "gory" matters. We Blues! We've fallen in line behind the sorts of (well-intentioned) people who call their podcasts names like this:

The Best People

The best people! In such ways, we reinforce everything that's ever been said about ourselves—and we help freeze the president's support in place. 

We Blues! We exult in the way his approvals seem to have dropped below 40 percent. But that's enough to maintain the state of play which may lead to disaster this fall. 

(As we've noted in the past, we exist in a state of undeclared secession. You see that in the way one half of the chamber applauded each of the president's obvious howlers last night. We've reached a state of undeclared tribal warfare—tribal war all the way down.)

Regarding the gore, let's say this:

We Blues care about some of those who have lost their lives in the nation's streets. We don't care about some of the others, about those who have been sexually assaulted and then brutally killed. 

We don't care about those otherwise honored dead; indeed, we invent dodges to whisk them away. That's part of the nature of tribal division, but we've made our disinterest clear.

(Full disclosure: Correctly, Maddow noted an unusual misstatement by the president about the vicious killing of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte last summer. It's true! The young refugee wasn't killed by someone "who came in through open borders"—but Maddow glided past an obvious point. That killing represents a second way we Blues stand accused all through Red America. In those precincts, we stand somewhat credibly accused of perhaps being "soft on crime.")

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but we Blues are fallible humans too. We're skilled at reassuring the choir, less adept at understanding the ways we may appear to tens of millions of Others. 

It's been quite a few years since we first blurted this:

It's all anthropology now!

We meant there would be no happy ending to this dangerous state of affairs, no easy resolution delivered to us by our rational / empathetic qualities. Years later, the state of this struggling nation is dangerously, deeply tribal.

We've suggested that you "pity the child," but how far will the sitting president perhaps be willing to go? Urged on by the Millers, the Vances, the Hegseths and Gabbards, how far might the gentleman take it?

None of us has the slightest idea, and we aren't even willing to travel the roads which give us the chance to ask!

This afternoon: Lawrence and Gutfeld and Noem oh my! Studies in human behaviors

Tomorrow: A hockey game versus the dead! How well do we understand others?

TUESDAY: Where is the number 2 a 5?

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2026

On our most-watched "cable news" program: Sometimes, the stupidity seen on the Fox News Channel reaches a special level. 

Last night, the studied dumbness was truly world-class. Consider our failing nation's most-watched "cable news" program, the padded room procedural known simply as The Five. 

Also, consider Gutfeld!, its spiritual cousin—the painfully numb-nutted messaging show which comes on the air at 10 o'clock Eastern, 7 o'clock on the coast.

There are quite a few serious topics a show like The Five might explore. We'll cite one example—Mayor Mamdani's current proposals for the New York City budget.

Stating the obvious, the dumbbells assembled to rule this show wouldn't be able to conduct any such real discussion. Quickly, let's consider one of the topics these dumbbells did pretend to explore, a topic which was also beaten to death five hour later on Gutfeld!

Yesterday, The Five pretended to discuss one of the ways New York City was hoping to dig out from the snow. In a perfect capture of this program's gong-show essence, the "discussion" started like this:

MAYOR MAMDANI (videotape, outdoors in the snow): Due to the historic nature of this blizzard, we've increased pay to thirty bucks an hour. And you can walk into any Sanitation garage until 8 p.m. this evening, and starting again from 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. All you need is to bring is two forms of I.D. to ensure you get paid.

WATTERS (chuckling): Call it the Snowcialist state! Zoran the Destroyer says you don't need I.D. to vote, but you need five forms to touch a snow shovel.

PERINO: [Laughter] 

In that tape, Mamdani was urging New Yorkers to help the city shovel out from the snow—but what followed was classic The Five! The tape showed Mamdani referring to two forms of I.D. 

Without so much as batting an eye, Watters raised the number to five!

No explanation was offered. Struggling to compose herself, the increasingly awful Dana Perino, lovingly adjusting her hair, switched it right back to two:

PERINO (continuing directly): I mean, it's just so obviously funny. And what's great is that—I know that he's an intelligent guy, and he's quite charismatic—that he doesn't realize, as he's saying the words out loud, how ridiculous it sounds to need two forms of I.D. to shovel, but not to vote.

We'd somehow gone from two to five, and now we were back at two! Again, we've seen no statement from Mamdani concerning forms of I.D. needed to vote.

At this point, Watters threw to the disordered Young Master Gutfeld himself. After offering a hackneyed digression on bureaucracy, the little guy offered this:

GUTFELD: Five I.D.s! Now that is redundant—for shoveling snow! Now he brought it back to two, which is good...

The termagant went with five, then said that Mamdani "brought it back to two." The fellow didn't explain his comment—but when Gutfeld finally finished talking, Watters returned to this:

WATTERS: Emily, if you actually present five I.D.s and you get a shovel, can you just go to the bar for a couple of hours and come back and get paid?

COMPAGNO: I don't know. I would think so. I don't know if I have five I.D.s....

It was a modernized version of Who's On First, performed by a messaging troupe composed of corporate clowns

On this occasion, the children kept jumping from two to five and back to two, with no attempt to explain. Held until last, twice-weekly liberal co-host Jessica Tarlov now said the shoveling offer was actually a pre-existing approach used by Gotham mayors in blizzards of the past.

Sometimes an attempt to get snow shoveled may be just an attempt to do that! 

The New York Post had invented the grisly conflation of 2 and 5 in its original pseudo-report on this topic. In this follow-up report, the Post did a bit of semi-explaining, even as the paper adopted a new snarky approach:

Mamdani admin. fails to attract any shovelers for hours at NYC site

S’no thank you. 

The Mamdani administration failed for hours to attract any emergency shovelers at one Queens garage Sunday—while planning to try to dig out New Yorkers with a fourth of the force the city used for its last mega-storm. 

[...]

While city officials said they expect to have attracted a total of 1,400 public shovelers to start round-the-clock shifts beginning Sunday night, that quantity is still a fraction of the 6,454 people who were recruited for the 2015-16 winter season, which saw up to 3,500 shovelers working simultaneously at peak times that period.

[...]

The mayor has recently caught some backlash over the city’s rigorous sign-up requirements for the program.

While some have called on Mamdani’s administration to change the requirements so as to allow more people to pick up a shovel, city officials claimed there was little they can do about it.

“We know there has been some press about the requirements, and we want to be clear: As with any employer, the City of New York has a legal obligation under federal law to verify work authorization and maintain proper documentation before issuing payment,” DSNY press secretary Vincent Gragnani told The Post.

“We are not legally permitted to hand out checks without completing that process,” he said.

“Ensuring compliance with employment law isn’t red tape for its own sake—it’s what allows the program to operate responsibly and sustainably, helping keep our city running through the toughest winter days.”

Even Rupert Murdoch's Post was now making it sound like the I.D. requirements hadn't come from the laughable mayor himself. As usual, the Post's reporting wasn't precise enough to create any clear understanding about the source of the I.D. requirements.

As noted, it was the Post itself which performed the original act of conflation. It had referred to two forms of I.D. in the body of this report, transformed to five in the headline. A panel of deadbeats—four of The Five—decided to have some low-IQ fun with the whole situation. 

This has been standard fare on this braindead channel since the first snow fell. Going from 2 to 5 to 2 to 5, four hounds from Hell burned yesterday's hour away in this and other ways.

Stupidity's easy, explanation is hard. We may someday be able to tell you about the additional intellectual rot on display all over this channel last night.

Meanwhile, what about Mamdani's budget? That would be an actual topic.

These dopes are too flyweight to go there. Tarlov continues to suffer.

STATE OF THE (DIS)UNION: Even before Jones interrupted...

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2026

...Khanna oddly misspoke: Not long ago, the so-called Big Weekend Show was a virtual afterthought in the Fox News Channel's cavalcade of corporate messaging programs.

As the leading authority on the program recalls, the show had debuted, in a one-hour format, and under a slightly different name, in February 2021. Things dragged along for four years.

Big Weekend was expanded to a two-hour format in January 2025, then to three hours last September. This was part of the channel's decision to eliminate hours of "news reporting" in favor of an increase in group propaganda shows. 

The channel engineered this adjustment after President Trump was elected for the second time in 2024. Last September, the channel also announced that The Big Weekend Show would have regular co-hosts for the first time, with Tomi Lahren and Johnny Joey Jones cast in those roles. 

Last Saturday, it was this potent three-hour show which attempted to tell Red America how to view the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision—its to throw a large portion of the president's prevailing tariffs onto the junkheap of history. The program went on the air at 5 p.m. Three minutes later, Secretary Bessent, on videotape, had made the new situation almost impossibly clear. 

As viewers could see on the videotape, here's what the fellow had said: 

BESSENT: Six justices simply ruled that "Aye-Eepah" [phonetic] authorities cannot be used to raise even one dollar of revenue. This administration will invoke alternative legal authorities to replace the "Aye-Eepah" tariffs. 

Treasury’s estimates show that the use of Section 122 authority, combined with potentially enhanced Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs, will result in virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026.

Few things could be more clear! As we noted yesterday, co-host Jones was soon explaining the president's inevitable greatness as it had been manifested in this episode:

JONES (2/21/26): I can't help but laugh at Josh Shapiro...

You know, [the Democrats] play this game that's— They're not very good at it, I don't think. 

President Trump is smarter than they are. He's playing checkers, they're playing— Or, he's playing chess, they're playing checkers. 

Trump had outsmarted the Dems again! The Democrats had been playing checkers. He had been playing chess!

Along the way, co-host Lahren had littered the twelve-minute pseudo-discussion with descriptions of the Democrats' horrible motives in opposing the miraculous tariffs—the bad faith Democrats had revealed in the course of their refusal to root for the United States against the rest of the world. 

In this way, the corporate messaging was broadcast through Red America as the channel worked to maximize corporate profits even as it undermines the possibility of maintaining the American project.

So it goes as this channel's messenger children bend themselves to the scripted corporate will. But as we noted yesterday, something very unusual happened on Sunday's Big Weekend Show.

On this campus, our youthful analysts were surprised but heartened by what this development. During Sunday's 6 o'clock hour, co-host Jones teased, then later introduced an extremely unusual segment:

JONES (2/22/26): Joining us now is Congressman Ro Khanna, a member of the House Armed Services and House Oversight Committees. 

Congressman, thank you for joining us. We don't get a lot of Democrats on here, wo when we do, we want to treat you with respect. 

Say what? Rep. Khanna (D-CA) has been prominent on MS NOW in recent months, largely due to his tireless work with respect to the attempt to engineer the legally mandated release of the Epstein files. 

In a rare bit of bipartisan conduct, Khanna has joined with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) in his work on that project. Now, Khanna was actually appearing on The Big Weekend Show!

It was a very unusual cable event. It didn't go remarkably well, but if we the people are ever going to find a way "back out of all this now too much for us," it will have to come from events like this—from events in which the two Americas, Red and Blue, attempt to speak to each other.

Inevitably, the current state of our nation's (dis)union makes such undertakings hard. Consider what happened when this prominent Blue American congressman showed up on this Red American messaging program.

We start with a mutual bungle. Khanna had apparently been invited onto the show to discuss the so-called SAVE (or SAVE America) Act. This strange first exchange occurred:

JONES: Do you believe that only American citizens should vote in American elections?

KHANNA: Yes, of course. But I don't think there's some widespread problem of those who are undocumented or who don't have papers voting. By the way, there are criminal laws for that. Enforce the criminal laws. If someone is voting who is not an American citizen, then they should be prosecuted.

The problem I have with the SAVE Act is that it unfairly puts a burden on women. Women are going to, if they've changed their last name, have to go amend their birth certificate or go get a passport, and it unfairly puts a burden on students. How is it that hunting and fishing licenses count, but student IDs don't count for kids?

JONES: That's a great point!

Really? "That's a great point?"

Khanna's statement about married women who changed their names could have been the start of a real discussion about one problem with this Republican "Voter ID" proposal. But his second point—his statement about hunting and fishing licenses—seems to have nothing to do with this sweeping new proposal.

That complaint seemed to be hanging around from earlier Voter ID debates—debates within which it constituted a perfectly valid Democratic complaint. That said, hunting and fishing licenses play no role in this new GOP proposal, but Khanna instantly brought them up.

Co-host Jones seemed to have no idea! "That's a great point," he strangely said.

Moments later, Khanna turned to hunting and fishing again. Briefly, a bit of context:

The SAVE Act has passed in the House, but it's widely believed to have no chance in the Senate. Perhaps for that reason, it's rarely discussed on Blue America's cable news shows.

Meanwhile, on the Fox News Channel, the SAVE Act is constantly cited. But in the absence of Blue American guests, the valid objections to its provisions are simply never mentioned. 

Instead, the act is treated as an unobjectionable proposal for a national "Voter ID" requirement—and "Voter ID," generically presented, polls extremely well. Messenger stooges on Fox will thereby cite Democratic opposition as proof that the Democrats are plotting to let "illegals" vote:

In the absence of any coherent statement in opposition to the proposal, this attack on Those Fiendish Democrats Today will seem to make perfect sense.

So it goes when two large nations, Red and Blue, observe years of strict self-separation. In this particular case, a genuine oddity occurred:

Given a chance to voice his objections to the proposal, Khanna emitted a genuine blooper. But perhaps because he only knew the standard Fox scripts about this proposal, Jones seemed to think that he had just heard his Blue American guest articulate a "great point!"

From there, things went straight downhill. Jones continued to question Khanna—and now, the instant interruptions and overtalking began. To see this overtalking in action, you can (and should!) click here. 

Co-host Jones had pledged to show respect, but that dream was quickly deferred. Quite suddenly, Jones seemed to be showing that he could play tough with his Blue American guest.

It's very, very, very rare to see a guest like Rep. Khanna on a Red American messaging program like The Big Weekend Show. On Sunday, a startling first attempt was made, and the state of the nation's vast (dis)union quickly swam into view.

Jones knows his tribal messaging points. Khanna didn't seem completely up to speed with respect to the topic at hand.

(Did he know that was going to be the topic? We have no idea.)

Tonight, a major source of the nation's disunion comes full-blown center stage. At Fox, we hope they try this sort of thing with Rep. Khanna (and others) again. 

The bulk of Sunday's nine-minute segment was in fact perfectly civil. At one point, a good solid laugh was shared by Khanna and the Red American panel.

Can a large modern nation expect to survive in a state of perpetual self-segregation, half Blue and half Red? We hope that Fox tries this format again. There's no other way out of the mess into which we the tribals have fallen.

Tomorrow: "Fixed ideas" v. union?