HEALTH: We're launching a search for the president's health!

MONDAY, MARCH 30, 2026

And for what that familiar term means: Last Thursday afternoon, the sitting president convened one of his televised "cabinet meetings."  

We employ scare quotes there because these televised events are unlike the classic cabinet meetings of the American past. That evening, on CNN's Erin Burnett Outfront, Burnett asked S. E. Cupp to comment on this latest event.

Meanwhile, who is S. E. Supp? Burnett introduced her on this occasion as "former Republican strategist, now podcast and television host S. E. Cupp." 

The leading authority on Cupp's career as a political commentator offers this somewhat dated overview:  

S. E. Cupp 

Sarah Elizabeth Cupp (born February 23, 1979) is an American television host, political commentator, and writer. In August 2017, she began hosting S. E. Cupp: Unfiltered, a political panel show, co-hosted by Andrew Levy, on HLN and later CNN.

She is a former panelist on the CNN political debate show Crossfire, author of Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity and co-author of Why You're Wrong About the Right. She was a co-host of the MSNBC talk show The Cycle...

[...]  

Throughout her career, Cupp has described herself as a "mainstream conservative" and a supporter of "limited government, self-reliance, self-empowerment, lower taxes." ... 

Cupp was strongly critical of Donald Trump's [first term] presidency, saying "I don't know these Republicans [that support Trump]. This isn't what drew me to this party." She voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 United States presidential election. 

So it had gone with Cupp as of 2020. Now she was discussing the president's latest "cabinet meeting." In part, she offered this:

CUPP (3/26/26): Listen, the truth is, most voters are not watching these insane cabinet meetings. We have the pleasure of having to do that, and they are insane. 

And if you watch them, that's one, one of several moments that are just kind of nutso. If you watch them, you have to seriously question Trump's stability.

She described the televised events as "kind of nutso," insane. Most strikingly, she said the televised events raise serious questions about the sitting president's "stability."

That was one observer's instant assessment of the day's event. Later, Cupp added this commentary on the cabinet members, but also concerning the president himself:

CUPP: This is the cost of being in Trump's orbit. Pam Bondi unfurled a banner at DOJ with Trump's face on it to suck up to him. Rick Grenell put Trump's name on the Kennedy Center to suck up to him. He's now gone.

I mean, it's really humiliating. The groveling, the flattery, the North Korea coded kind of attitude you have to have in this White House and news breaking today, he's going to put his name on our money. I mean, this is just humiliating for a great nation like ours.

I just think we are looking increasingly like a North Korea, you know, like a hermit nation where you just have to tell the president what he wants to hear. I hear they're showing him videos of things blowing up in Iran. Like that's his security briefing. 

It's insane. It's insane. It could get people killed. But just at the basic level, this is not America as we know.

[...]

He hasn't even told the American public why were in Iran, when we're going to get out, what to expect. He hasn't conditioned us to know what's about to happen. And he's rambling for four minutes about Sharpies. It's embarrassing. 

BURNETT: Four minutes and 56 seconds, to be exact.

That was one (1) observer's assessment. For whatever it may be worth, the word "insane" kept sliding in as Cupp assessed that day's "North Korea coded" event. 

That said, also this:

That was Cupp's first mention of the Sharpies. Right at the start of the show, Burnett had beaten her to it.

Burnett had explicitly teased the president's discussion of the Sharpies in the CNN program's first minute. Later, she mentioned the Sharpies again as she teased the upcoming segment with Cupp:

("Why did President Trump spend nearly five minutes today talking about Sharpies while America is at war?")

Say what? Had the president really spent five minutes discussing Sharpies at the "cabinet meeting?" As shown above, Burnett timed the president's rambling discussion at "four minutes and 56 seconds, to be exact." 

Plainly, Burnett thought this discussion had been strange. Cupp seemed to think it was part of what made her question the president's "stability."

So it went inside much of Silo Blue in the wake of the "cabinet meeting." Cupp made liberal use od the word "insane." Earlier, a headline in Mediaite had used that same word, except a bit more so. 

The opinion piece at Mediate had been written by Colby Hall, one of the site's founding editors. The headline atop Hall's opinion piece said this:  

OPINION
We’ve Stopped Noticing That Trump’s Cabinet Meetings Are Completely Insane 

In the headline, the president's cabinet meetings were said to be completely insane. In the body of his piece, Hall quickly mentioned the Sharpies, along with a few other somewhat peculiar "subjects covered by the President of the United States at Thursday’s cabinet meeting."

The headline called the meeting insane—completely insane at that. Somewhat oddly, the word "insane" doesn't appear in the body of Hall's essay. 

Still, an obvious question might have seemed to arise in Hall's piece. It seems like a very important question:

Was Hall suggesting that something may be wrong, in a serious, significant or dangerous way, with the president's "mental health?"

Was Hall suggesting something like that? We'll examine his essay tomorrow. For today, we'll close with this:

On a conceptual basis, physical illness is easy. On a conceptual basis, so-called "mental illness" is hard. 

Our struggling society, such as it is, operates with a very limited set of understandings about the nature of "mental illness." Also, our news orgs have long agreed that questions of mental health must never arise in discussions of major political figures.

That was always a very good rule—until the time came when it wasn't.

Is it possible that our sitting president is struggling with (serious) mental health issues? How well do we understand what that claim might even mean?

Today, we start down a long and winding road in pursuit of those plainly important questions. Is something wrong with the president's "stability"—with the president's health? As a nation, shouldn't we possibly be trying to puzzle that out?

As a society, we're looking at this question through a glass extremely darkly. Like all people, the president deserves to be in good health—but what is the actual situation on this very day?

Tomorrow: Hall seemed to voice a major complaint—a complaint about the press