FRIDAY, JUNE 19, 2026
It's sometimes a medical term: We tip our hats to Jonah Goldberg for his rumination about the sitting president on today's Inside Politics.
At Mediaite, Jennifer Bahney provides transcript and videotape, along with a bit of background. Here's part of what Goldberg said, with us saving the highlight for last:
‘So Unbelievably Radioactive’: Jonah Goldberg Slams ‘Delusional’ Trump For Alienating US Allies
Conservative journalist Jonah Goldberg slammed President Donald Trump on CNN’s Inside Politics for alienating U.S. allies like Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni.
[...]
“Let’s go back to the context of that interview [with Axios] where he says, ‘We totally defeated Iran militarily. There are no limits to my power,'” Goldberg said. “The fact that he’s coming out of this week with this deal, saying that there are no limits to his power when he was forced to negotiate ending a blockade to open up the Strait of Hormuz is preposterous.”
Goldberg continued:
"And why was the Strait of Hormuz such a problem? They begged to get allies to come in and help with the minesweeping, because our European allies have better equipment for that kind of stuff. Couldn’t get them to do it. Why couldn’t they get them to do it? Because he threatened to militarily take over Greenland, and made himself so unbelievably radioactive...
"... I think his approval rating in Denmark is like 4%, right? So like, those are limits to his power! We would be a much more powerful country if we had allies that were willing to get our back and help us out. Those are limits. What’s disturbing is he’s so delusional he can’t see the limits to his power, and that’s something that’s going to get him into more mistakes.
Trump is delusional, Goldberg said—and that can be a colloquial term. That said, we think you should consider this:
"Delusional" can also be a diagnostic medical term.
"Delusional disorder" is the name of a related set of "mental disorders," medical conditions which are also described as "mental illnesses." If you click that link and scan the leading authority's overview of that set of disorders, we'll recommend that you click the links for this pair of diagnoses:
"Grandiose type (megalomania)" and "Persecutory type."
Let's be clear—the upper-end press corps is never going to consider the possibility that the sitting president is in the grip of a serious mental illness. They're never going to interview (carefully selected) medical specialists who might (or might not) be able to shed some light on his increasingly peculiar behavior.
Our journalists would rather go down with the ship, at the direction of their news org's paymasters.
Nearer My God to Thee? As they color inside the lines, our shipmates won't even hum that!
ReplyDelete@MeidasTouch
TRUMP SPARKS DIPLOMATIC CRISIS WITH ITALY: Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has canceled his planned June 21–22 trip to Washington after President Trump insulted Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, claiming she “begged” for a photo with him at the G7 and that he “felt sorry for her “
How much longer, dear Lord?
Trump lies. (Sorry, but it’s true, Bob). Also, no pity.
DeleteDon't ask God for relief. Trump is His punishment for our national stupidity.
Delete"Trump lies."
ReplyDeleteCertainly, he makes many false statements. But a "lie" requires that he knows the statements to be false, and if he's delusional, as Somerby suggests he might be, then it is possible that he believes the false statements that he makes.
George Costanza explained all this long ago. It's not a "lie" if you believe it.
He lies. All the time. He always has. It’s part of his shtick. He doesn’t “believe” meloni begged him for a photo any more then he believed there were more people at his inauguration than there were at Obama‘s. It’s just pure unadulterated lying bullshit, It’s a power play. You can’t say whether the fucking asshole believes anything at all that he says. But what I know is from his past history and his fucking book, that he deliberately lies about stuff in order to manipulate people. And that’s what we know. That’s part of what makes the asshole a sociopath.
DeleteFuck off. He doesn’t believe his fucking lies and it’s easily proven
DeleteIf Trump believes such fantastical clearly provably false things, then he is way beyond delusional. He is stark raving mad. And yet he’s quite competent at corruption, grifting and bringing the entire GOP to heel. How’s that for a stark raving mad individual, DG?
DeleteTrump is like a man playing poker and always declaring he won the hand but never allowing the other players to see his cards. That works for him because the enablers he surrounds himself with allow him to fucking bluff all the time . Why can’t people see ths?
DeleteHe’s such a chickenshit fraud that he never gets into a game with men who would make him turn over his cards
DeleteThat is Trump’s superpower - no fucking shame and idiots like Somerby too scared to call him a liar
Delete"He doesn’t believe his fucking lies and it’s easily proven"
DeleteSince it's so easy, go ahead: Prove it.
You haven’t been paying attention, DG
DeleteYou are very foolish to interpret Trump's "false statements" in a manner that suggests them to be what? The product of a disordered mind? Is that your very generous interpretation? That they may not be lies because Trump is unfit now to distinguish between true and false? Sorry, but there is a history here and it goes back decades. Do you believe that his statements about Obama's birthplace were made in good faith? That was roughly 18 years ago when Trump was in his very early 60's. And years before that after the Central Park five were exonerated with the rapist's confession and DNA testing, when Trump continued to declare them guilty and advocated for them to be locked up, do you think that was in good faith? Because you cannot attribute his actions in either case to progressive dementia, as you might like to at this late date.
DeleteDoes DG honestly believe Trump really believes he won in 2020? It’s nonsense. He wants to delegitimize that election and the upcoming elections. Most of the GOP is now behind him on that. Even judicial nominees refuse to contradict him. It’s a strategy used by fascists. Somerby is way off track when he claims Trump really believes he won, and therefore he is mentally ill.
DeleteJust saying, DG…
Just saying — Somerby never claims that Trump “really believes he won.” Learn to read.
DeleteHere’s the truth. I believe Trump is a liar, and so do you. But I don’t know if he’s a liar, and neither do you.
DeleteDoes Trump believe he won the 2020 election? Probably not, but maybe he really does. Which might be even scarier than if he’s just a common liar.
Go ahead and cherry pick the 2020 election, when Trump was roughly 74 years old and could conceivably have been cognitively impaired, or may have been hard wired to be unable to accept defeat irrespective of his mental acuity. That does not excuse the myriad of other instances in which he lied publicly or in business dealings .
DeleteWhen he wants a loan, Trump believes his buildings are worth billions. When he's filing taxes, he believes they are worth millions. He doesn't lie; he just has a flexible belief system.
Delete1:02. Nice.
DeleteHere’s the truth. If DG had a contract with Trump to perform services and then Trump refuses to pay DG and lies about his obligations under the contract, I fucking guarantee that DG will find a way to fucking prove Trump is lying.
DeleteWhen Donald J Chickenshit was indicted for multiple felonies connected to trump’s attempt to
DeleteKNOWINGLY & CONSCIOUSLY fucking steal the 2020 election, Jack Smith was not afforded the opportunity to prove his case in court. Donald J Chickenshit didn’t argue that the charges were false, he ran to the SC to beg for FUCKING IMMUNITY because he fucking knew the charges were true. Do fuck off DG, king Chickenshit doesn’t need your help anymore
Trump even lies about raping children.
DeleteDG,
DeleteLike Somerby, the media, and everyone else in the world, you have absolutely zero proof there is a Republican voter who isn't a bigot.
It doesn't matter whether Trump believes his own lies or not. He does not get to live in his own separate reality and it impairs his performance as president. Trump needs to be removed from office ASAP.
DeleteWhether Trump is a liar, or whether he is suffering from cognitive decline, the fact is that he is President of the United States of America today because there isn't one Republican voter who isn't a bigot.
Delete7:14 - I agree with you that Jack Smith didn’t prove his case in court.
DeleteRepublicans elected a child rapist to be President for the sole reason that he's a gigantic bigot.
DeleteI accuse Trump of being a child rapist for two reasons:
Delete1. It's true.
2. He doesn't sue people who accuse him raping children, for some reason.
Once an ass, always an ass DG
DeleteThe republicans want to manipulate and possibly steal the elections. They are largely all in on claiming that democrats always cheat in elections. It is a clear strategy, and not the ravings of a lunatic. Read Hannah Arendt, DG.
Delete"...Jack Smith didn't prove his case in court..." I thought you were a lawyer but maybe I am mistaken. Because that statement is pejorative against the case Jack Smith was barred form taking to court by a Trump appointed judge. Your statement implies that Smith went to court and failed to prove his case. There is some dishonesty in your choice of words here.
DeleteNo, it's totally dishonest RW bullshit cult talk.
Deleteif, hypothetically, the case were now allowed to be taken to trial, and you argued "What's up with that? Jack Smith already failed to prove his case in court!" You would look as silly as you do here.
Delete1:04. Yeah, agreed.
DeleteThe rising opposition to data centers is the latest threat to the neoliberal technocrats who run the Democratic Party and they’re already working on ways to snuff it out the way they did the Medicare for All movement.
ReplyDeleteOk that comment wins the prize tonight. Bizzare.
DeleteHilarious. If that is not a joke, seek help.
DeleteI’ll pass that comment on to Mr. Wonderful.
DeleteWhen Mary Trump finishes her investigation of who staged the press dinner shooting, let's get her input on delusional disorders again.
ReplyDeleteMary Trump is qualified to diagnose delusional disorders. Somerby is not.
DeleteFor one thing, we all have delusional beliefs. What makes such beliefs into a disorder? Somerby doesn't say, but that is the crux of whether or not someone is mentally ill or normal.
For Trump, the criterion is not whether he is mentally ill but whether he is capable of performing the job of president. There is plenty of evidence that he is failing as president and needs to be removed.
Somerby is also failing as both a media analyst and political observer. Transcribing long sections of Gutfeld's show, repeating all of the slurs, making his own slurs against women, none of that is competent analysis. Somerby is an asshole and he too is getting worse, not better, at his job.
There is nothing Gutfeld and his bunch can say about Heather Cox Richardson that diminishes her contribution to political commentary and historical writing. These right wingers are fleas in comparison. Including Somerby.
Mary Trump, someone who thinks the press dinner was "staged," can be relied upon to tell us all about reality and fantasy.
Delete10:36, you do realize that it is Somerby who puts such great stock in Mary Trump’s opinions, and not the commenters here?
DeleteWhat is wrong with Kathy Bates? She has won major acting awards including an Oscar and currently stars in a TV series, Matlock.
ReplyDeleteTrump buried Iran’s nuclear material so deep that Iran has indicated the United States will have to dig it up because it can’t reach it to hand over.
ReplyDeleteHe also took out over 85 percent of Iran’s defense industrial base; sank its navy; grounded its air force; damaged its centrifuges; and decimated its ballistic missile capabilities, conventional military forces and infrastructure of repression.
He not only eliminated Iran’s supreme leader, he also took out dozens of other senior Iranian officials. That is in addition to Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s terrorist mastermind, whom Trump killed in his first term. Today, thanks to Trump, Iran’s top leadership has been annihilated, the regime can no longer project power in the Middle East and it possesses only a “nuisance” capability, according to Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command.
No president in 47 years has done more damage to the Iranian regime than Trump has.
Even Trump voters who pretended they voted for him because he won't start wars, and not because they support racial, ethnic and gender hierarchies, support Trump losing the war with Iran on Day One.
DeleteIran’s military said on Saturday that the Strait of Hormuz had been closed to maritime traffic, citing what it called a “clear breach” of U.S. commitments to implement a preliminary deal to end the war, according to a statement carried by state media.
DeleteSeriously hard to believe anyone takes anything this administration says seriously.
DeleteNo president in 47 years has been so stupid losing a war to Iran on day one.
DeleteDemocrats want to believe the lie that the Strait is closed because they hate America.
DeleteTrump said he had destroyed Iran’s nuclear capability last year. No doubt 10:35 believed him then, just as he believes him now, and will continue to believe every iteration of his bullshit ad infinitum. It’s what they do.
Delete