| Trump is obviously suffering from the onset of dementia. |
Trump appears rational and alert, until you begin to listen to what he's actually saying.
On Tuesday’s {7/8/25} edition of MSNBC’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki, the host sounded off. JEN PSAKI, MSNBC ANCHOR: All right. We’re six months in, almost six months into Trump’s second term. There’s a couple things I at least know for sure. You probably do, too. Donald Trump has no understanding whatsoever of the economy. No interest in policy making at all, no earthly clue what he’s doing or what is even happening on most days. I mean, every day that fact becomes more and more inescapable. Just take Trump’s on again, off again tariff policies, which are back in the news today. Of course, remember, it was only three months ago, just three months ago, that Trump held his big liberation day press conference, slapping arbitrary tariffs on 90 countries, promising deals and sending the markets into a downward spiral as a result. He then backed off those tariffs just one week after they went into effect. He suspended them for three months and promised to negotiate 90 brand new trade deals with 90 countries in just 90 days. Maybe he liked 90. Today was supposed to be the deadline for those 90 days. It was today and Trump has delivered none of them. Zero. None of them. We’ve seen some frameworks for potential agreements, what you might call concepts of a deal, which is sometimes like a press release, but nothing, none, nothing has been formally signed. So, this week, Trump kicked the can yet again, saying that most of his tariffs will not take effect until August 1st. And on Monday, he even signed an executive order to make the new deadline official. But when asked why he was delaying the tariffs by weeks, Trump denied that his deadline had ever changed. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We didn’t move. No, no, it’s always been August 1st. That’s what we’re paying. And a statement was put out today and I put it out just to make it clear it wasn’t a change. It was August 1st. We don’t change very much. You know, every time we put out a statement, they say he made a change. I didn’t make a change. (END VIDEO CLIP) PSAKI: He’s been so convincing for a second. It’s always been August 1st. It wasn’t a change. I didn’t make a change. Let me just read to you, though, from the executive order Trump signed just one day before making those exact comments you just saw. Here’s what it says, quote, the 90-day suspension expires at 12:01 a.m. Eastern daylight time on July 9th, 2025. I have determined that it is necessary and appropriate to extend the suspension until 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on August 1st, 2025. So again, Trump was presented with a document to literally move the date from his original deadline of today to August 1st on Monday. He then signed such document, declaring that he found it necessary and appropriate to change the deadline. But when asked about it just one day later, he says it never happened. Does Trump not remember signing that document? Did God forbid his advisors use an autopen to sign it without his consent? Imagine that. Does Congress need to start holding hearings to figure out who is really running the White House? Or can we just accept the obvious fact that Donald Trump, on any given day, at any given moment, has no earthly clue what is going on around him, even when he is what he’s agreeing to at times it seems? And the evidence of either his incompetence or ignorance, whatever it may be, maybe a combo just keeps piling up. I mean, as part of his I’m not chickening out tariff announcement, Trump announced a bunch of new, completely arbitrary tariff rates he plans to implement on august 1st. And today, he was asked an understandable question ab out how he came up with those new rates. Here’s what he said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: Sir, can you explain how you calculated your latest round of tariffs? Was there a formula that was used? TRUMP: The formula was a formula based on common sense, based on deficits, based on how we’ve been treated over the years and based on raw numbers. (END VIDEO CLIP) PSAKI: So just to recap there, it’s common sense, plus deficits, plus how we’ve been treated over the years, plus some raw numbers. The rawer the better. Look, I’m no mathematician. He’s clearly not either. It’s kind of hard to crunch the numbers when two of those four variables are based entirely on vibes, I guess. I mean, vibes wrapped in a word salad of economic lingo and words he may have seen in briefings at some point in time, I don’t know. But I’m sure this is a totally responsible and not at all made up way to set trade policy for the world’s largest economy, right? The question, though, was in part prompted by the letters Trump sent to the leaders of several countries announcing those new tariff rates that he came up with using his special formula word salad thing. And many of those letters were surprise, surprise, full of errors. For instance, here was a letter he sent to the leader of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It begins with “Dear Mr. President”, which is awkward because the leader of Bosnia and Herzegovina is neither a president or a mister. Her official title is your excellency, and you can see her right there. But just like with tariffs, Trump has no idea what he is doing when it comes to foreign leaders. I mean, that is far from the only incident. Here he was today in a meeting with the president of Liberia. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Thank you. And such good English. Such beautiful. Where did you — where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where? Where were you educated? Where? JOSEPH BOAKAI, LIBERIAN PRESIDENT: Yes, sir. TRUMP: In Liberia? BOAKAI: Yes, sir. TRUMP: Well, that’s very interesting. It’s beautiful English. BOAKAI: Sure. TRUMP: I have people at this table can’t speak nearly as well. (END VIDEO CLIP) PSAKI: All very interesting. I mean, Donald Trump was so impressed by the Liberian president’s English. I guess nobody told him that the official language of Liberia is in fact, English. But that is what you get when our nation’s diplomat in chief has no idea what he’s doing, even on the things that are supposed to be Trump’s signature policy issues, the things he supposedly cares most about. I mean, Trump has repeatedly showing us he definitely didn’t read the memo or any memo for that matter. He’s completely in the dark, like on immigration signature issue. Here was Donald Trump just this weekend announcing new plans to ease up on deportations for farm workers after pushback from big agriculture. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: If a farmer is willing to vouch for these people in some way, Christie, I think we’re going to have to just say that’s going to be good, right? You know, we’re going to be we’re going to be good with it because we don’t want to do it where we take all of the workers off the farms. (END VIDEO CLIP) PSAKI: We don’t want to do it where we take all of the workers off the farms. Kind of clear what he’s saying there. Trump was saying he was not going to deport farmworkers. That understandable for that to be the takeaway. Now, here’s what happened next, according to “The Washington Post”, Trump’s comments led to intense public pushback from MAGA figures, who warned about plans to offer amnesty to some migrant workers. What are they talking about? Trump asked aides upon seeing the criticism. I never talked about amnesty. Now, by the end of the day, Trump’s secretary of agriculture was announcing that the mass deportations on farms were back on and that the administration was working toward a 100 percent American workforce. Okay, so U.S. immigration and labor policy just whipsawed back and forth over the course of just a few days, all because this president does not seem to understand the impact of his immigration enforcement policies on the economy. He didn’t seem to understand that when he said, and this is a direct quote, again, we don’t want to do it where we take all of the workers off the farms that naturally anyone would assume that means he’s going to exempt farm workers from the policy. So, he doesn’t know what he’s saying, does not know what he’s promising people from one minute to the next. It’s the same thing everywhere you look in this administration, like at the Department of Defense. Last week, the Pentagon abruptly paused weapons shipments to Ukraine, a move that “Politico” reports was a shock to some Trump allies. And yesterday, Trump was asked who ordered that pause. This was his response. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: Last week, the Pentagon paused some shipments of weapons to Ukraine. So, who ordered the pause last week? TRUMP: I don’t know, why don’t you tell me? (END VIDEO CLIP) PSAKI: I don’t know, why don’t you tell me? I mean, Trump, who is, of course, also the commander in chief, apparently has no idea who in his administration is making major decisions about U.S. military support. Now, he could have asked somebody after that. But today, Trump was asked again if he made any effort to figure out who is making these consequential decisions without his sign off. And here’s what he said today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: Yesterday, you said that you were not sure who ordered the munitions halted to Ukraine. Have you since been able to figure that out? TRUMP: Well, I haven’t thought about it because we’re looking at Ukraine right now and munitions, but I have no — I have not gone into it. REPORTER: What does it say that such a big decision could be made inside your government without you knowing? TRUMP: I would know. If a decision was made, I will know. I’ll be the first to know. In fact, most likely I’d give the order, but I haven’t done that yet. (END VIDEO CLIP) PSAKI: I haven’t thought about it. Okay, so Trump says he still doesn’t know who gave the order to stop sending those weapons. But if a decision is made, he’ll be the first to know. Even though a decision was clearly already made and he does not know who made it. And he definitely was not the first to know since he’s been asked repeated questions about this. And it’s been all over the press. Just absolutely clear, Trump has no idea what’s going on inside his own government Source: "MSNBC’s Jen Psaki Torches ‘Clueless’ Trump on Gaffes — Floats Congressional Probe on ‘Who’s Really Running Things’ " by Tommy Christopher - MediaIte - Jul 10th, 2025 {Quoted in full} Trump is 78 years old. There is no doubt that Trump is eclipsing the point of dementia. By the way, at no point would Joe Biden have ever said any of those things. |
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