NEW ARRIVALS: When he did it again, the New York Times...

TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2026

...did what a news org should: Incomparably, your astonishing Daily Howler keeps banging out those results!

We refer to a news report which appears in print editions of this morning's New York Times (but also online, of course). The news report starts like this: 

Trump Stokes Islamophobia by Calling Democratic Candidates ‘Jihadists’

President Trump on Monday described Democratic candidates in the midterm elections as “jihadists,” adding to Islamophobic statements recently made by Republican elected officials.

Mr. Trump also delivered another tirade against people of Somali descent, saying: “They’re not smart, they have no aptitude, they have nothing going, and they’re telling us how to run our country.”   

Asked about the candidates representing the Democratic Party in the midterm elections, Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that “we have jihadists being elected all over the place. We have this — whether it’s communism, jihadism.”

White House officials did not respond to requests for comment about Mr. Trump’s statements on Monday, and about how the comments could alienate Muslims in the United States.

"And about how the comments could alienate Muslims in the United States?" What an absurd instant focus! And yet this news report goes where it ought to go and it does what it should:   

It reports the inexcusable, perfectly recognizable conduct being engaged in by the man who currently sits in the White House.   

On this sprawling campus, we assume the person in question fits the description given by his niece earlier this year. We assume that the person in question is dealing with "obvious age-related cognitive declines," layered atop "decades of serious, undiagnosed and untreated psychiatric disorders, which are only going to worsen."   

The fact that she said it doesn't mean that it's true. On balance, we'd be inclined to assume that it is.

We're inclined to assume that it's true. Borrowing therefore from a fictional freedom fighter, we therefore will tell you this:

"Since no one is to blame, I demand no [further] explanation."
(Victor Laszlo)

There's no one to blame for cognitive decline, or for serious "mental illness." But we'll call it a "new arrival"—we'll call it a welcome new arrival—when the New York Times, the very next day, reports such inexcusable conduct as this:   

While the president did not name a specific candidate, he targeted Mr. El-Sayed hours later when he posted an image depicting the Democratic candidate standing in front of a crowd that included two women wearing head scarves. “They are coming for your home and your belongings,” a caption read along the image.

And his rant came two days after he posted on social media an image of himself with the first lady, Melania Trump, next to an image of Dr. El-Sayed and his wife. The text above the image read: “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s.” 

[...]

A number of other Republicans have ramped up their anti-Muslim language since Dr. El-Sayed’s primary win. Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama wrote on social media that “Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed is a RADICAL ISLAMIST,” calling him a “TERRORIST.” Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina said on social media that “every single Muslim holding public office in America is a trojan horse, and a threat to both national security and our republic.”   

Most senior Republican officials have remained silent...

Most officials have remained silent? As we noted yesterday, so has the bulk of Blue America's mainstream press corps, as for example when the sitting president engaged in this very familiar behavior last week, before a crowd in Las Vegas:  

PRESIDENT TRUMP (8/5/26): In Congress, we're working every day to defend the American dream for you and your children. The radical left, the maniacs, they're trying to destroy it with the disaster known as, not socialism—Communism!

It's Communism. These are Communists. And the polls were wrong again last night when they thought it would be a landslide victory for a hater of Jews and a hater of Israel. 

This guy hates Jews. Somebody said, "Oh, that's a little strong." No, he hates Jews, and he hates Israel.

 "Abdul El-Sayed." Can you believe this? This could only happen to me. 

Abdul El-Sayed, a lovely gentleman! He's a man of hate, and now he's going around saying, "No, I love everybody." He doesn't love everybody. Put him in office, you're going to find out what he loves. 

He doesn't love Israel. He doesn't love Jewish people. He hates them. He hates them with a passion that burns in his heart, and there's not a fricking thing he can do about it. There's not a thing he can do about it because he hates them.   

Sadly, there was more from where that came from that day. We regard that as a blindingly obvious type of behavior—but also, in all likelihood, as an artefact of the situation his niece had described.  

It's a tragic but deeply dangerous fact about modern American life. Almost surely, the sitting president is afflicted in something like the ways his niece, a doctorate-level clinical therapist, described in her best-selling 2020 book, Too Much and Never Enough:   

Prologue

[...]

None of the Trump siblings emerged unscathed from my grandfather’s sociopathy and my grandmother’s illnesses, both physical and psychological, but my uncle Donald and my father, Freddy, suffered more than the rest. In order to get a complete picture of Donald, his psychopathologies, and the meaning of his dysfunctional behavior, we need a thorough family history.

In the last three years, I’ve watched as countless pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have kept missing the mark, using phrases such as “malignant narcissism” and “narcissistic personality disorder” in an attempt to make sense of Donald’s often bizarre and self-defeating behavior. I have no problem calling Donald a narcissist—he meets all nine criteria as outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)—but the label gets us only so far.

[...]

Does Donald have other symptoms we aren’t aware of? Are there other disorders that might have as much or more explanatory power? Maybe. A case could be made that he also meets the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, which in its most severe form is generally considered sociopathy but can also refer to chronic criminality, arrogance, and disregard for the rights of others...

The fact is, Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests that he’ll never sit for.   

For fuller context from her book, you can just click here. But so the gentleman's niece assessed—and you didn't have to read very far. It was right there in the Prologue!

The fact that Mary Trump said it didn't mean that it's true. But among trained medical specialists, she was hardly the first to say or suggest it. 

Former Yale psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee had already died for our sins by the time Mary Trump's book arrived in the stores. But nothing has ever inspired our mainstream journalists to report, or to discuss, these unfortunate but plainly dangerous medical possibilities.   

That said:   

The president's behavior is inexcusable, but it's also undisguised. It's easy to see what it is.   

Today, in a type of new arrival, his behavior has been instantly chronicled by the New York Times. Also appearing today is this second news report, a first cousin to the report we've already cited:   

Trump Signs Executive Order Calling for Fewer Childhood Vaccines  

For the third time in less than a year, President Trump on Monday issued an executive order that calls for American children to be routinely immunized against fewer diseases, as they are in countries like Denmark.

The latest version embraces more explicitly than its predecessors a revised schedule that recommends immunizing children against 11 diseases, rather than the 17 that are currently recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The order also “directs the attorney general to advance legal challenges against states that violate children’s rights to religious or medical vaccination exemptions,” Mr. Trump said.

Speaking in the Oval Office before signing the executive order, Mr. Trump said he was motivated in part by concerns over whether vaccines were tied to autism, even though dozens of studies have found no link between the two.   

There he's gone again! Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy's name doesn't appear until paragraph 9. For the record, also this:   

“There’s no science behind these recommendations,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “It’s all about ideology.”  

A reader doesn't encounter that until she hits paragraph 8.   

In recent weeks, quite a few "new arrivals" have appeared on the front. Some members of the DSA have brought the eternal note of sadness in. 

When a Muslim was nominated for the Senate, his arrival was greeted with this.  

Tomorrow: New arrivals, arriving fast