Transcript of 2: Trump’s Mental Decline Is Now a National Emergency (w/ Jim Acosta) New

The place was so full, like full like nobody has ever seen before.

It's the biggest crowd.

Right, the biggest crowd.

Hello everyone, and welcome to Psychopolitics. It's my new podcast here at The Bulwark, and this is the very first episode. And with us today, we are honored to have the Honorable Jim Acosta, who the President of the United States has called a real beauty from his first term when, you know, he basically basically the whole mode of how President Trump deals with the media. He established it about 5 or 6, I don't know how many years ago, 7 or 8 years ago with Jim Acosta. And it's— and history is repeating itself. Jim, former White House lead, White House correspondent for CNN, lead domestic correspondent for CNN. And it's just great to have you, have you here, Jim.

Oh, it's great to be with you, George, as always.

It's so weird. Like, I get to ask you questions and I, you know, I've been on show so many times in different iterations. It's so great to have you on. Absolutely. This is our first show, and so we're experimenting with a few things. And one of the things I think that I want to do for these shows, and I don't think I'm always going to have the guest participating in this, but you're the perfect guest for this ongoing— I guess it's going to be a segment, a regular segment, and we're going to— I'm calling it Donnie Dum Dum. D-U-M, D-U-M, no B. Donnie Dum Dum, and this is the Donnie Dum Dum segment, basically consists of let's just see all of the really intelligent things that the President of the United States has said, really the sane things that the President has said in recent days or recent weeks, and we, you know, we play them, or if it's a tweet, or a Truth Social post, we do dramatic readings from them and then we talk about them. So, let's get started. I've selected a few, I don't know what order they're going to come up in but I think we're going to have some fun with this and you're good, you're the perfect person for this, it's great.

I feel like this— we're going to run out of time here, this segment could go on forever considering the subject matter, you know.

Well, that's— I intend this to be a long-running podcast. Okay, guys, roll the clip.

And a bill that would change the terms of mother and father to gestating and non-gestating parents. You can no longer say mother. Hi, Mom. It's hi, gestating. Hi, gestating. I love you so much, gestating mom.

What can we say about this gestating effort?

It's not gestating? I don't know. I think that one of the things that we've come across this second term, I think, with Donald Trump is that, you know, we're beyond his brain is broken. We're now at a place where, you know, not only is he out of material, he's out of brain cells. And I think that that clip in particular, you know, there was the other clip over the weekend where he, you know, said that, well, I'll just say anything stupid and you guys will clap. Or something like that. He, you know, he said that one too.

When you stand up here, it's just like the love. I could say the stupidest things and you'd clap, you know, I love you so. That's true. But we don't say the stupidest things. We say things of common sense.

And, you know, it— I think we've reached the point— I've been describing it this way. There's this whole conversation about Earth 1 and Earth 2. I sort of feel like we're on Earth 3. You know, Earth 1 is like the normal planet Earth. The second one is the first term where, you know, truth became lies and lies became truth. I think we're now on Earth 3, which is What do we do with the president of the United States who is both mentally unstable and in serious decline? And it's just staring us in the face on a regular basis. And the more he does these rallies, you know, the more I think the case becomes crystal clear that we have a 25th Amendment crisis in this country. And, you know, yeah, it's fun to poke fun at him and joke around and talk about how ridiculous he sounds. But this is the president of the United States. This is the guy who is— Absolutely. Giving Vladimir, giving Vladimir Putin the store when it comes to Ukraine and saying, oh, we'll buy your gas now because, you know, we've jacked up gas prices so high because of this war with Iran.

And so I, you know, I listen to some of this stuff and that whole gestating thing, I'm thinking to myself, you know, and the crowd applauds with him. It's almost like they feel sorry. It's like the last kid picked on the football team. And so they feel sorry for him. It's just— Is this reverence? Is this cult-like behavior? Is it just pity? I don't know.

I agree. Needless to say, I mean, I agree with you about the broken brain syndrome. And, you know, I think we are on Earth 3. I think it's, uh, an Earth 3 I think you would call, uh, Planet Natalia— uh, Planet Natalie, I'm sorry. Natalie, yeah. Some kind of Natalie, yeah, present. And, um, but I'm gonna defend him on this one. He is now gestating. Using the word gestating now expands his vocabulary to, I think, like 206 words now. So, you know, I have to give—

Was it gesticulating? It's something. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I have to be fair. Give, give, give credit where credit's due. He learned a new word, which is not easy to do when you are in his mental state at his age. Anyway, next clip.

I'm the smartest guy you're ever going to meet. And don't you want to have a smart person as president? Yeah, you want to have a smart person. In fact, I took the cognitive test. I'm the only one.

Play that again. The cogni-what?

In fact, I took the cognitive test. I'm the only one.

I think that's just his way of— deep down, I think that's a Freudian slip, that way of expressing that he's a boob.

George, I mean, right there at the end, he says, I'm the only one. Yes, you're the only one that we know of that has taken a cognitive test because it's so damn necessary. You know, it keeps happening with him. They keep giving him the cognitive test. I will tell you, George, I did one of these cognitive tests. I did it for one of my shows, and I'm sure you've looked at this too. I mean, this is the most— like, this is a test that we give to people who have brain injuries, you know, who have serious issues where cognitive, you know, health, cognitive abilities are important as to whether or not somebody should be released from the hospital or perhaps hospitalized.

It's a dementia screening test.

It's a dementia screening test. There's no question about it.

Montreal Cogn— and so he's so proud that he's taken it so many times. It's like, Why are the— we never get an answer to the question, why are the doctors asking him to take it?

I would love for somebody in the press to say to him, you know, that's not an IQ test, right? Like, they need to say to him, you know, sir, that is not an IQ test.

Hold that thought. Hold that thought. We have so much to talk about, about, about what the press does and what it doesn't with this.

I won't tee it up too much.

Yeah, that's okay. Next, next, next, next clip.

You need to be a student at the top of your class at MIT to turn on a lawnmower nowadays, you know. But I got rid of all that stuff. Now you can have a lawnmower.

No, he did not do that. He makes up these things that he's accomplished. It's sort of like, I settled 8 wars, so I get the Nobel Peace Prize. And, you know, anybody with a functioning brain knows that he has not settled 8 wars. He has not saved lawnmowers. You know, windmills do not cause cancer. You know, Hannibal Lecter is a fictional character. I mean, the list goes on and on, but that one is— that one's strange.

I will say this about the Nobel Prize. He did something he did a couple times in his first He misspelled it in one of his Truth Social—

The Noble Prize.

The Noble Prize. I remember that one. You know, I mean, he is like the least noble person we know, but okay, noble.

And if you want to go down that road, I will tell you my theory on the whole Nobel Peace Prize thing. This has nothing to do with actually being recognized for whatever he's done on the world stage. This is all about whether or not he can pressure the Nobel people to give him the prize. That's what this whole thing is. It's sort of like with the press. Beat up on the press. See if you can get better coverage. up on the Nobel people just to see for fun if they'll give him the Peace Prize. I don't think he really thinks he should get the Nobel Peace Prize. That's just my personal interpretation.

I don't know whether— I think his brain is such mush. He thinks— I think he's convinced himself of a lot of things that aren't true at this point. And, and, you know, I always thought that in the first term, it was like it was just a mix, a jumble of things in his brain about things that were true, things that were not true, things that he wanted to be true. And I think it's just even worse today. Next clip.

Oh, it's way worse. Way worse.

I actually had a Democrats say, you know, whether you like him or not, he made a lot of promises and he kept more promises than he made. I actually kept more. I did more things than I promised. But promises made, promises kept. Yeah,

he kept more promises than he made, like by 600%. I don't know. Maybe this is the same kind of Trump math that he does with, with the, with drug pricing. I don't know.

I will give him sort of a backhanded compliment here. He is the greatest of all time when it comes to bullshitting people. He— I can't— I mean, can you think of anybody who is a bigger bullshit artist in the history of the world than Donald Trump? I can't. I mean, I would— I think about this from time to time. He is like the Tom Brady. He is the GOAT of bullshitters.

Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.

And, you know, keeping promises? No more forever wars. Let's get rid of the warmongers. Hello? We're in the middle of an energy crisis in this country. We're buying gas and fuel from Russia because of his goddamn war in the Middle East. That's why— that is a promise broken. That is one of the biggest promises broken. Remember, read my lips, no new taxes? This no forever wars thing, is that— isn't that just as bad or worse than read my lips, no new taxes?

It's much, much worse because, you know, read my lips, no new taxes, at least that required a congressional vote and people agreed on that. Right. He brings us into this war. Nobody agrees to it. He doesn't explain it. And then it basically screws everything up, the economy. Absolutely. Our alliances. But anyway, okay, next clip.

Thanks to the heroes of the U.S. military, we also now have total control of the Strait of Hormuz. You know, we have—

oh my God.

Again, that— see, this is what I'm saying.

Oil is coming through the strait today than it was before the war. Do you believe that one? Refiners and retailers need to start dropping their prices right now. We want— we're getting them so much oil.

So much more oil is coming in now that that the Strait of Hormuz was closed and then we closed it on the Iranians. And now it's— he says, you know, it's the Strait of Trump, I guess, or the Strait of America. Yeah, the gas is going to be cheaper now than it ever was.

As my mother would say, it's getting deeper around here. I don't have my boots on. I mean, he is so— the Strait of Hormuz, he's so full of shit that again, it's the bullshitting. You know, it's sort of uncontrollable. He's like a busted fire hydrant of bullshit now. It is. It's It's uncontrollable. It won't stop. All we're missing is the little kids playing in the street, except they wouldn't play in the street if it was a busted hydrant of bullshit. But that is what he is right now. He is just spewing nonsense and garbage on his Truth Social account, in front of the cameras over at the White House, when he's in the Oval Office. I mean, I think that so much for the fact-checkers these days. These days you need truth-checkers because He utters so much bullshit, you could probably spend less time just counting the number of truths that he, that he utters.

Yeah. That's what I thought. I always thought that Daniel, your former colleague Daniel Dale, should be just basically, oh, he said something true today. That's it. I think he actually did say something true about what would happen if the Republicans win the election. Do we have that one?

But I can be perfect on that. All you have to do is vote in the Republicans. If they get in, you're going to end up in a depression. These people are incompetent. They don't know what the hell they're doing.

Sometimes he, you know, he sometimes he kind of accidentally tells the truth.

That's

it. And I think there are 2 circumstances where he does that. First is when he has just sort of a brain fart, which is, you know, very common.

Common.

And the other sometimes is when he's talking about his own motivations.

Yes.

And when he's— when he is at— when his miscreance is at its highest, sometimes he'll just confess something, you know, that he believes something, he wants something bad to happen. And, you know, the lawyers go, oh my God, and oh my God. And that's right. My friends like Norm Eisen bringing lawsuits put it in the, like, the first, first line of the brief becomes the quote.

I think that for— and I've said this, you know, many times, like, for as dishonest as he is, he can be remarkably candid at times. And that is one of those moments. And, you know, it tends to happen, George, you're absolutely right, when he accidentally tells the truth. And again, you can count on one hand how many times he does that. you know, on a regular basis. But I mean, the other thing too in all of this is that, you know, I think there's something sinister going on in the back of his mind, which is he would love to see the Republicans go down in flames. I really do. I think that there are some of the Republicans, he's like, I really hate that guy. You know, these guys, they really don't like me. They talk about me behind my back. They say what a psycho I am. They say what a scumbag I am and how corrupt I am. And they say all these things behind my back. I'd love to see those turkeys go down. I bet there is. I think that he— that conversation is going on in the back of his head.

Well, that's, that's interesting. Um, that's— hold that thought too.

And you know what they're doing? They go straight down. You know, you can make those drill bits talk. You can make them sing. You can make them go— they go down. New York's over here, Pennsylvania. They go down and they take a sharp left and they suck our oil out. Can you believe it? And if you go upstate New York, you'll see lines of different states, and you'll see one has Cadillacs because they like Cadillacs better than they like Mercedes. But one has an Escalade and one has a 50-year-old Chevy. And you're talking about 3 feet. It's a line that goes right up. One has some beautiful drilling plants and one has no drilling plants. Got no money. It's got poverty. What they've done to this state is unbelievable.

Man, oh man.

I mean, this is that— this is, this is the most broken-brain-ish thing that we've played. I mean, I, I, I— the drill bits, they— I, I mean, he's talking about the drill bits and then the 3 feet.

I thought he was gonna do drill baby drill, but it was— it sounded like it was more like bore baby bore because there was like the guy behind him looking at his watch and—

Oh, that was the best. Yeah, yeah, the pizza guys. Yeah, the guy's like, Like, you know, I mean, somebody online said, the guy's asking for like, where's— I want, I want to get this over because I want to, you know, he's got his— I think it's his girlfriend there or something like that, and they're looking at each other like, where do we get our— where do we get our $50 and when is this over? Because we got to get our $50 for showing up here or something like that.

Oh man, you know, when the front row Joes are bailing on him, he's in trouble. You know, you've seen that story. I mean, he's got his, his own diehard supporters are, are bailing on him. And when you look at, I think I think it might've been this crowd or it might've been the one in Tennessee where they, somebody was, I think it was Sean McCreesh of the New York Times, somebody was panning around looking at the whole auditorium and there's a whole bank of empty seats on the rear of the auditorium at one of these events. And so, you know, he likes to say, oh, there's a crowd, there's a line a mile long outside the auditorium. You know, the fake news never shows that. And it's all bullshit.

That's pretty good.

That is.

The place was so full, like full like nobody has ever seen before.

The biggest crowd. He does it, right?

The biggest crowd. And then remember, I mean, he really is, I mean, particularly with crowds, he's always been a little delusional about that. And I remember, remember during the '24 campaign, he says, Kamala Harris, those were all AI, AI-created crowds, you know? I mean, but I, you know, there really is something here to go back to your 25th Amendment point.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's gotten worse. I mean, there's just— Oh, unquestionably. I think he's gotten worse. And I think he's always been a sociopath, a psychopath, somebody who truth doesn't mean anything to him. He'll just tell any lie. I mean, it was sort of like what he confessed once to, you know, Lesley Stahl. I'm just going to lie about you. I'm going to lie about the press so that when people, when you guys say something about me, no one's going to believe it. It was— there was some manipulative lying there, you know, a lot of Orwellian. For sure. I think he's really reached the point where he cannot distinguish— first of all, he can't distinguish his own lies from the truth. Right. And I also think that he has so enveloped himself in a world where he cannot be challenged and where he hears only things that he wants to hear. Like, and I remember first it started— well, it started long ago, but most dramatically in 2024 when the human printer, Natalie Hart, first showed up and she would hand him things during the criminal trial to make him feel better.

Right.

And I think part of what the accelerating attacks on the press— now, I mean, not that we haven't seen it before. Obviously, we saw it with you and Brian Karem back in Trump 1. But I think it's getting worse because even the slightest challenge to his vision of reality is deeply, deeply threatening. It

is. I mean, and it goes back to what you were saying earlier about how he's living on Planet Natalie. There's no question about it. He's been insulated in this bubble of his own fake news, of the fake news that they generate over at the White House. He likes to go around calling other people fake news. He is now living in a world that is entirely created by spoon-fed bullshit stories that make him feel better about himself and— what a disaster this administration has been. I mean, this has been— and I've been around for 55 years, and I've probably been politically aware of things since I was like, I don't know, 10 or 11. I can't think of a more disastrous presidency than the one that we're living through right now. Yeah. And surely, as compromised as he is mentally, he must have some understanding of that, George. He must know that old cliché that we used to say all the time during the first term, that the walls are closing in. These midterms are coming up in a few weeks, and he is being totally rejected by the voters on a whole host of fronts.

And I wonder what that's gonna do to him after this is over. I was there when he lost the first time around in 2020, and I was talking to advisors and friends who were close to him, and one of them said to me, you know, he's lost it. He's totally lost it. How is he gonna lose it this time, George? And what will the price be for all of us? I mean, that's the serious question in all of this.

Yeah, I thoroughly doubt it.

It could be a serious price to me paid, and it could be extremely destabilizing for this country if he attempts again to thwart the will of the American people.

Yeah, I mean, I thoroughly agree with that. I mean, I think one of the things that psychologists and psychiatrists who have studied this kind of character will tell you is that people who are these— who are this deeply psychopathic at some point lose touch with reality because, you know, megalomaniacs, they, you know, it's like— and I always use this metaphor of the movie Downfall, and which is actually based upon what really happened where Hitler was in the last 10 days in the Führerbunker, waving around divisions that don't exist.

Yep.

And that's a lot of what he's doing today, talking about the Strait of Hormuz, more oil going through the Strait of Hormuz than before, and talking about his wonderful approval ratings and on like that. He really, I think he says some of that stuff not just because he wants other people to believe it, but he's trying to and has convinced himself. And as you say, I mean, it's a dangerous, dangerous, dangerous thing with the elections coming up in 2026 and again in 2028. And, you know, this is a man with thousands of nuclear weapons at his disposal. And that brings me back to something that we didn't play this clip. I mean, there were a couple of clips of it, but you and I both commented on it online.

Yes.

Where he said at least twice and maybe a third time, there was a debate about what he was saying. Some people said that he was legit, you know, inviting the Iranians to obliterate San Diego and Los Angeles and other people.

Yeah, let them bomb San Diego.

Let them bomb Los Angeles. Let them bomb San Diego. Let them bomb and see what is, you know, that's a small price to pay. And he kind of cleaned it up the second time around.

Sure.

I mean, look, there are 2 problems with what he said the first time around, and I'm sure everybody has seen it. One is that he's so incoherent. He is so incapable of putting together words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs that it really did sound like he was saying, come on, Iran, bomb, bomb. You know, I mean, the real, you know, I honestly don't think he was saying that exactly. And I do think, you know, in his own warped mind, he was trying to convey that, well, you know, you were paying these temporarily high gas prices, which he now says are lower, but anyway, he says different things at different times of day. Yeah. But it's nothing compared to if these cities, which just happened to be cities in California, which is his least favorite state the nation are wiped off the face of the earth. Yeah. And I think there is more to it though than that. I mean, I do agree that he wasn't inviting the Iranians to do it, but I think that in his mind, part of the fantasy, the megalomaniacal fantasy that goes on in his mind is that I am what stands in front.

I am the thing that stands in the way of the complete destruction of the world. And I am— that's why I should win the Nobel Peace Prize. That's I settled 8 wars. And in his mind, he has this fantasy of that this happens and he will, or he will stop it, or it happens and he will retaliate like no one has ever seen before. Because, you know, that's what he was talking about earlier.

Yeah.

In the year when he talked about obliterating civilization of Iran off the face of the earth. And this kind of Armageddon-like speak is not— he actually did it once in his first term. I remember I wrote this article in The Atlantic about Trump's psychology, and one of the events that I found kind of disturbing was he started talking about Afghanistan one day, I think at the Resolute Desk, and he says, I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, drop nuclear bombs on these people and, and wipe out 10 million people. I just don't want to do that.

Yeah.

And, and, and, and yeah, I guess that's a good thought. I, I know we should not want 10 million people to be killed by nuclear by, you know, I don't know, a Tsar Bomba kind of 50-megaton nuclear bomb or whatever, however he thought he was going to do it. But he says that stuff so casually.

Exactly.

It really shows how sick a man he was. And the way I put it in The Atlantic piece was he said that so casually, it was as though he was talking about, I don't really want to raise tariffs on chewing gum. Yeah, that's how casually he says it. And that's the thing that really, really disturbs me about him. I mean, he's a man with no— he cares about nobody but himself. He's the only human being in the world to himself. Our value to him is only if we worship him and do his bidding.

That's right.

And he doesn't— he really wouldn't care. I think the only reason why he would care if San Diego or Los Angeles were wiped off the face of the earth is if he got blamed for. Okay. That's all he cares about. He, you know, if somebody dies or somebody, it doesn't matter to him. If something horrible happens to somebody where, where we would look and say, oh my God, that's the worst. So, you know, we feel a pit in our stomach because we, we empathize on some level with any human being, even the ones we don't like. We empathize with their suffering. And we, because we understand this, this is something. What if that were me?

Exactly.

He's not capable of that. And that's what really disturbs me about his flippant remarks about the destruction of cities. I don't know. What do you think?

Yeah, no, I mean, I don't think you can be commander-in-chief if you're not in command of your own mind. And I think that is where the breakdown is with Donald Trump. He is not in command of his own thoughts. He is not in command of the words that he uses. And I agree with you, if you go back and listen to what he said, and I think I knew what he meant at the time. But we shouldn't have to solve the Rubik's Cube of insanity to decipher—

Absolutely.

What he is saying on an hourly basis, which is where we are as a country right now. We are now in the process of dealing with a severely declined and unstable president of the United States. And we're all going to have to fasten our seatbelts to, you know, get through this moment. But in no sane world, in no normal world, Should the president of the United States ever, ever conjure up the images of major American cities, any American city, being obliterated in a nuclear strike? That to me is Looney Tunes One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest stuff. And I saw all of these pointy-headed, holier-than-thou folks who are on social media trying to explain away his comments. Why are you having to explain away his comments? Correct. That's the problem with where we are as a country right now. He's taken us to a place where we sort of have Stockholm syndrome, and we have to interpret on a regular basis all of the insane ramblings coming out of his mouth. And none of that is normal. And George, you and I are old enough, we've been around the block a time or two to know it's not normal.

It's just not. Yeah. And so at what point do we acknowledge that? And so you could say, oh, well, he was talking about gas prices, or, oh, he was talking about how he would never let that happen again. He should never be musing or talking about or conjuring up or fantasizing about American cities getting blown up in a nuclear blast. It's totally nutso stuff. And I got more— I think I got more pissed off at the way people were sane-washing this whole thing than what he actually said, than at him for actually saying these things. Right. Because people need to cut that shit out. He's nuts.

Yes, I agree with that.

And people need to stop— Stop sane-washing him and making him a normal president when he's totally not. I mean, it's just obvious.

No, it's obvious that it's like if any other politician had said any of that or any number of other things, we would— we'd actually have the psychologists and— We would have a 25th Amendment vote. Right. We would have a 25th Amendment vote.

The cabinet would have conversations about it, that members of Congress would be talking about this. They would be on the talk shows, Republicans and Democrats, because we care about our country. But because he has such a cult-like hold over the Republican Party, they won't do jack shit. And that's why we are in the fix that we're in. And that's why this upcoming midterm election matters so much. It is an opportunity for the American people to slam the brakes on the insanity so we don't have to solve the Rubik's Cube of insanity on a regular basis.

Yeah. And I think it's not just the Republicans that are responsible. It's his critics, the Democrats, and also the media. We— there is just too much of an effort to take something that he says like this comment and try to rationalize it and make sense of it.

Yes, I agree with you. No, and I think that, you know, George, you and I, we know enough about history to know that there was a time when the press concealed FDR's disability, the fact that he was in a wheelchair at the time, that the press at one point covered up the many affairs of JFK and the fact that he had these massive pain issues that probably required medication that I think probably some in the press knew about. And so we don't live in that world anymore. Yeah. So we, you know, why are we— why are people in the press a part of this sane washing? It just doesn't— it's contrary to what we should be doing in the press. These things need to be called out. And I thought it was a shameful moment, I thought, for the press because they just took the White House interpretation, the far-right interpretation, the Fox News interpretation of what Trump was saying when there were people in his own party who were saying, I'm saying, how screwed— how screwed up is this? It's nuts.

Along the same lines, or an example of like good behavior, I have to give Senator Ossoff some credit for something I saw over the weekend. Did you see the clip where Senator Ossoff was criticizing Hegseth for Hegseth's plan to televise the execution of the Fort Hood shooter? And he said something to the that Hegseth was deeply unwell, a deeply unwell person, that he would be— in that he would relish this kind of brutality instead of just doing his job. Yeah. And I don't— one of the things that struck me is it really is one of the few circumstances where a democratic politician was calling into question the psychological normality, the, the, the, the, the sanity of one of these officials in the Trump administration. I was like, you know, the person— like, we could go— we could— you could have a field day on this subject with RFK Jr., who is basically just completely— he is completely delusional.

Yeah.

And he

was talking about chemtrails the other day. Chemtrails.

Oh my God, chemtrails. You know, and there's so many of them who really, they're not well.

They're the crazy guy at the end of the bar. It's the whole— much of the cabinet is the crazy guy at the end of the bar.

Right. And it's like, it's just, we have somehow, it's like we have become inured to it. I agree. And people are afraid. And part of the reason why people have become inured to it, and this is, as you know, this is a drum I've been banging now for 7 or 8 years, is the press doesn't actually, you know, if the president, you know, president had something on, you know, something that looks like his circulation's failing. You know, we put doctors on to talk about it, but they never put this— they never put the shrinks on to talk about this stuff.

Or the fact that he's falling asleep all the time. Falling asleep all the time. Almost every time he's in the Oval Office, he's falling asleep. That didn't happen when I covered him during the first term. I don't remember him really falling asleep. I remember him saying a lot of crazy shit, but I don't remember him falling asleep. And how do you fall asleep with RFK Jr. behind you, you know, talking about this and measles and everything. I mean, I don't— that would be like—

With that voice, that grating voice. It

reminds me of like Katharine Hepburn in On Golden Pond, you know, Norman, you old poop. You know, it just— he has sort of that sound to it. That was like the— that's the least soothing sound I can think of. I would definitely stay awake if I heard RFK Jr. behind my head, let's go out and eat a bear. You know what I mean? Like, that would definitely keep That would keep me up like all night.

And what I don't understand is, here's another one. I mean, maybe, maybe there has been a White House reporter who has done this, but I think I would've seen the viral clip.

Yeah.

Why doesn't a White House correspondent say, Mr. President, we've seen you falling asleep.

Thank you.

Multiple times.

I would've done it by now for sure. 100%.

Oh, we know you would've done it by now, Jim. Absolutely. Absolutely. But it's a fair question.

That's why I'm here, probably.

Sir, sir, have you consulted with your physicians about your, you know, your narcolepsy? I don't know what else to call it. Yeah, why are you nodding off in the Oval Office? You know, one, you know, there was one point I think in the last couple weeks where he looked like he was about to keel over. You know, usually he's good at kind of keeping his balance like this. I don't know, when I ride the Acela, my brain, my, my, you know, and I've taken that, I decide I'm going to take a nap or I'm on a plane.

Sure.

You know, my, my head doesn't hit the table, but his head looked like this time it looked like he was, oh, he's about to go over. I, I don't know. Um, I don't know why people don't ask him that question.

I know, I know. It's almost Weekend at Bernie's over there. It's, it's like, uh, you know, certainly with Mitch McConnell, I don't know if Trump's giving Mitch McConnell a run for his money, but I mean, it is, it, you know, I, I don't get it why the press isn't just, you know, you got stuff that's just happening right in front of Just go for it, man. Do the American people a solid here. Ask, ask the old guy, why can't you stay awake? We're all standing here. There's a— there's 50 people in this room right now talking, and you're falling asleep all the time. Like, what's going on here?

Same thing with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test you referred to earlier. It's like, you know, nobody has said to him, sir, that's a test for dementia. That's a screening test for dementia. Why are your doctors giving you that on a regular basis? You say you've done it more than once.

I just ask him, do you have dementia? Have you been— have you consulted with a doctor about signs of dementia? Yeah, I think that would be a perfectly fine question to ask.

It's a fair question. And it's a question, you know, these are the people who are talking, you know, they're the ones who raised all these issues about Joe Biden's mental state in 2023 and 2024. But why doesn't the press ask them? Why? Tell me. This is— you've been in that room. Why won't people ask They won't ask these fucking questions. Forgive my language.

No, no, they won't ask these fucking questions in many cases because Donald Trump has cracked the code in how to hurt the press in this country. These are journalists who work for news organizations that are run by executives who are in many cases chickenshit, and they will not stand up for their reporters if those reporters get in Donald Trump's crosshairs. And those news organizations are owned by companies that are under the thumb of either the FCC or the DOJ, you name it. And our media ecosystem in this country, George, is badly broken. And I've been saying this to anybody who will listen. We've got to come up with a different construct for delivering information to the American people. Mm-hmm. The fact that the Ellisons, the Trump-friendly Ellison family, now owns CBS and CNN, but they say, oh, we're gonna respect CNN's independence. Well, you didn't respect CBS's independence. You didn't do it with CBS, so we're supposed to give you a mulligan on that one? You have Scott Pelley coming out of 60 Minutes saying, they were injecting stuff into our stories. Like, you need a 60 Minutes story on 60 Minutes, but unfortunately, we don't have the same 60 minutes anymore to do that fucking story.

And so— Oh my God. That's why we're in the jam that we're in right now. And I think that, you know, in some cases, yes, some of those reporters, they're used to some cushy gigs. The other thing that they have right now— but the other thing, George, that we need to talk about is the White House has also taken away people's press passes. trespasses. They have taken over the job of deciding who is in the pool on a regular basis. They have decided who can sit in the briefing room. All of these things used to be run by the White House Correspondents Association, and the WHCA has just yielded all of that to the White House without much of a peep. And they put out these strong— it's like Susan Collins. They put out the strongly worded statement that doesn't do squat, doesn't do diddly. And finally, my friends in the press banded together and refused to cover him in the press pool. And now the DOJ is going after these companies for what, antitrust violations? They're trying to say antitrust violations. George, you're an attorney. You know what a crock of shit that is.

That's a crock of shit that is.

It's a crock of shit.

It's completely ludicrous. No, it's completely ludicrous. Yeah.

They try to do this. It's a, it's a program of harassment and intimidation to make everybody as miserable as possible in my profession. So they just say, just let him, just let him ramble on incoherently and tell lies and let him do his thing and don't disturb the delicate bird. word, um, or else we might lose our press passes again, we might lose our access again. Screw the access. Go do some good journalism. Go give them hell. That's what the press should do. You hold their feet to the fire no matter the consequences. And somehow we've lost that. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know what, what is happening. They're not going to be handing out any Profiles in Courage Awards to any of these executives at these companies because they've all handed their spines away to somebody who would destroy their profession. They hold dinners with him. Why? Why would you have a— why would you have a dinner with somebody who wants to annihilate your profession? It sounds stupid to me. I wouldn't do it. But, you know, here I am talking with you, George. I don't know.

Oh my Lord.

Maybe, maybe I got it all wrong. But I think you got to—

you got to stand up for yourself.

It's like what our mothers used to tell us when we were little kids. You got to stand up for yourself.

And, and what, what, what amazes me is— I mean, this is something I wrote about this, and I think we talked about this right after the late latest litigation erupted when CNN and MSNBC and Politico got their press passes pulled. It's like, I don't understand why this access, the physical access to the White House is so important if you don't ask the questions that need to be asked. If you, I mean—

You're just gonna chicken out.

You're gonna chicken out and you've got, we had the last White House press secretary who would just, you know, they would just— they don't answer questions, right? They either just lie or they deflect or they attack the reporter and you never get an answer to the question. And so I, you know, I got some journalists were critical of me when I basically said, I think it's an outrage. There's no question it's a violation of the First Amendment, but I don't see the press doing much useful here. And I don't see it as a huge loss if they get kicked out of the West Wing.

And I would say like, Go ahead and allow Trump to play out the scenario where he just gets his sycophants in the press, where he just gets the Newsmaxes and the Real America News and Fox, and let them do their thing and let the world see, let the American people see how absurd this is. Right. Let them see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears what a bunch of sycophantic state media-like reporters sound like when they're just asking the dear leader how great he is. The American people will reject this. They will think it's totally nuts and full of crap, and they won't want it. I think one of the best moments that could have happened in the last month was when they banded together and said, we're not going to give you your pool coverage, and Trump went out to his helipad to do his dog and pony show to show off the helipad, and he's talking and there's no sound coming out. Yeah. You can kind of hear some static and so— or some helicopter noise, and you can sort of hear— and I thought to myself, wow, there's a mute button on Donald Trump?

Wow. No, wait, the kids, phone the neighbors.

And, and that's right. It's like when, you know, the, the press, you know, she— that, that's one of the things they don't do in the press room, I think. I mean, I, I confess I, I can't watch these things anymore because it's just so— I, I want to throw stuff at the, at the reporters. I want to throw stuff at whoever's talking. But it's like when somebody asks a question, like the question that he got so mad at you for Yeah. When they had the woman try to take your microphone or take your microphone away and then they banned you.

In that moment, Peter Alexander did stand up. He did the right thing and he moved on to his question. But like in the example of when Trump was asked about Epstein and he said, quiet piggy, people forget he was being asked about Jeffrey Epstein when he said quiet piggy. So people say they make a big deal about the quiet piggy, but they don't make a big deal about why why he said it in that moment. He got really rankled over the fact that he was being asked about Jeffrey Epstein. Right. In that moment, the next reporter should say, but Mr. President, you didn't answer the question that, you know, you so rudely interrupted and called my colleague here piggy. Why don't you answer the question? What's going on with the Epstein files? Why are you covering up the Epstein files? They don't do that. And that is what the American people, I believe, want to hear. They want to hear the press standing up for one another and doing their jobs. And there's a bunch of us who remember the days of Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite and Sam Donaldson and Tom Brokaw. Sam Donaldson.

Peter Jennings, all these great correspondents over the years. And they remember the way it used to be done before the people in power figured out how to screw over these companies. And the only way to get back to that, in my view, is to hold his feet to the fire. There is no other way. Backing down, kowtowing, let's cut a deal, if you give us access here, we'll wink and nod over there, nobody buys any of that shit.

Yeah, and I, I totally agree with you. And I think one of the— you're never going to get solid, truthful, responsive answers.

No.

Even no matter— even if you had you and, and Alexander and, and, and Kaitlan Collins or whoever the people who are most persistent are at any given moment about asking questions and sticking to the— sticking to their guns.

Yeah.

You're never You're never gonna get a straight answer. You're never gonna get a truthful answer. You're never gonna get a good faith answer. But there is value in the American people and the world seeing how he reacts to the truth, seeing how he reacts to facts, seeing how he reacts to being challenged on his fantasies about—

Yes.

For example, you said, sir, you know, you said, sir, the other day that more oil is going through the Strait of Hormuz today than it was before the war. But sir, numbers are this. That's right. And, you know, even something as simple as that, just like, right. And then is he really going to say, you know, you could bring out, you know, bring out a little cardboard chart or something, you know, pull it out of the thing and just show it.

Yeah.

You know, and that's one of the things I just never understood why reporters haven't been doing that. And I also like when they interview him and they sit down with him, like, put up the crazy tweet. Like, here's a screen between us, put up the crazy tweet, read the tweet. Did you really mean that? You know, even if, even if you're not challenging him, you could say, sir, could you elaborate on this? You know, and then he's gonna start, you know—

I know, I'm with you 1,000%.

I just don't understand it. And, you know, and I, I look at that, it's like, I get it. Look, I'm a lawyer by training, and, and asking, you know, but asking questions is asking questions. And there are different ways you ask questions. By challenging the premises, you can challenge the premises of the witness. or the politician if you're, you know, a reporter in the press room, or you can basically, hey, draw them out.

Yeah.

To see how— what other crazy things they say. That's right. And that can be revealing too. And that's it. But they don't even do that. Um, you know, I just don't— I just don't get that. Anyway, what do you think of the new press secretary?

I don't know her that well. I don't remember her really from Trumpland. And the only thing that I've been able to pick up on in the 24 hours or so since this came out, and I don't know, was it announced? It just sort of got spewed out there over the weekend. Apparently she has some curiosity when it comes to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. She has been kind of on that fringe from time to time, and she worked over at his Truth Social company. So I don't get it. I know. And when you see images of her, she sort of fits the mold of physically what they want in a White House press secretary. But it seems to me that this is not a hire that's in service of the greater good and facilitating good relations with the press.

I kind of went off on, of all things, Pepperdine University the other day because of that. Pepperdine put out some, some glowing statement about how proud it was that one of their alumna had achieved such a, you know, a great position and how wonderful she was. And I'm like, okay, let me look up, let me look up Pepperdine's like statement of mission. And one of those is like, lo and behold, like most universities, we believe in truth, we believe in the search for truth. And, you know, here's this woman who was already saying she, you know, people are starting to pull up these old tweets from her, one, when old, old comments, one was where she said that that the, that the, the, the day-after pill was the same, was the same chemical that the Nazis used, Zyklon B. I mean, that's just unbelievable.

Well, and I, but I think, George, that's what he wants. He wants this, this lady, we should say, Katie Zakaria, I think is her name, or Zakaria, something like that. And I think what he is looking for, you know, as part of his hiring process these days is whether or not the person subscribes to conspiracy theories and kind of swims and, and plays in that same same space that he does, and he wants that now. I think that's why he likes RFK Jr. over at HHS. He probably thinks half of what RFK Jr. says is complete garbage, but he— I think he liked— and same with Pete Hegseth— but he likes the fact that some of these people traffic in conspiracy theories and sort of speak the language of, you know, nutty, uh, down the rabbit hole Alice in Wonderland conspiracy theories.

And she was apparently quoting some— no, she was saying that the COVID vaccine resulted in miscarriages. And there was— there's literally no— there's no statistical evidence to that fact. Zero. Zilch. And, you know, it's exactly right. She'll just— she's just another one of these people who'll say anything. And, you know, I hope people give it to Pepperdine for that. But anyway, a couple more things and I'll let you go. Yeah. You've been really patient with your time. Did you see the New York Times article over the weekend that talked about the threats to lawmakers and the effect this had? I did see that, yes. Yeah, I always thought that, that, that was an underreported story. Um, yeah, what do you think of that? What do you think of like the role that that has played in the current, you know, the current debacle or something?

Well, I mean, I will tell you, I mean, this is what I went through during the first Trump administration, uh, because Trump put a target on my back and on the backs of my colleagues over at CNN at that time. You know, I was being deluged threats. They were coming through social media. They were coming in the mail in some cases. My house got swatted, and there were all kinds of crazy things that were going on. And what I was trying to communicate at that time, and I think the president of CNN at that time, Jeff Zucker, was conveying the same thing, is that if you continue to go after the press in this fashion, if you continue to threaten people in this fashion, you are going to whip up your supporters into such a frenzy that some of the least stable of of them will start to threaten our people. Yeah. And I remember after he called us the enemy of the people and, you know, we were getting those bomb threats over at CNN. I remember there were actual pipe bombs that were sent over to CNN. And at the time, we, you know, Jeff Zucker and other executives at CNN said to the White House, said to Donald Trump, you know, you really should take down the rhetoric.

You should stop calling us the enemy of the people and so on. I asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders at conference, can you please stop calling us the enemy of the people? She refused to do it. We were told over the grapevine that Donald Trump was refusing to stop calling us the enemy of the people. His attitude was, that's the way it goes. You get in my way, you're going to get threatened by my people. Yeah. And what I communicated at that time is, you know, he goes after the press first, you better watch out because other segments of American society will come next. And I'm not surprised at all that political leaders are getting threatened. And apparently Marjorie Taylor Greene was quoted in the story as it was seen in the press.

Yeah, no, I have the quote here. I mean, this goes right to what we were talking about earlier about how he really doesn't care if people are physically harmed.

Does not care.

Ms. Greene reached out to Mr. Trump. She had been threatened in some— which her children had been— her child had been threatened. Reached out to Mr. Trump hoping for compassion from a president she had stood by for years. She forwarded copies of the threats to him hoping that seeing the threats against her family would be enough to tone down the tax. She got a 5-word reply from the president: your fault, you deserve it. A White House spokesman did not deny the contents of Mr. Trump's text. It's really amazing.

Doesn't surprise me at all. No, that's completely in keeping with his character.

One last question.

Yeah.

Um, what's going to happen as things start falling apart for him? Because I do think the— you know, I, I do think, and I knock on— you know, I, I don't want to jinx it, but I do think that he's going to suffer a major electoral defeat in the fall. And I do think, you know, as we both agree, he's deteriorating. And I think that reality is going to test him more significantly than ever before. Yes. You know, we see, you know, we see the situation in the Middle East far from getting better, deteriorating. I mean, King Khalid Airport was bombed a couple of times over the

weekend.

Yep. You know, things— it's going to become more fraught. The situation we're in economically, the international situation, his political situation is, you know, he's going to be facing investigations now. Correct. What— where does this go? How does he react? Because my theory is that he, even though he's more feeble than he ever was before and more deranged. You know, he's, he's less functional than ever before and less competent than ever before, uh, and sleepier than ever before. I think he's more dangerous.

I think he's more dangerous too. And I— and that was one of the reasons why I, I thought it was so disturbing when he was saying that stuff about let them attack, uh, LA and let them attack San Diego. because I think it took us into his frame of mind right now, which is a very desperate and panic-stricken place. Yeah. And I totally agree with you, George. I think if this election is so seismic that he can't steal it, then he's going to be in a very bad place. All of his corrupt actions are potentially going to be exposed. There's going to be a major constitutional crisis, I would assume, between the legislative branch and the executive branch, because the oversight committees and all of the relevant committees are going to seek documents, and they're going to want to know about what Jared Kushner has been doing, what Don and Eric have been doing, and what Donald Trump has been doing with the crypto and the stock trades and everything else. And that's just scratching the surface of the corruption. I mean, we've been drowning in an ocean of corruption ever since he got back into the Oval Office.

And so, I don't know what he does. My guess My guess is that he is going to attempt to do something with these midterms. The results may be so large that he won't be able to do that, and then he may just snap. And I do think that at that point, the Republican Party, the people who work with him over at the White House, which, I mean, that's not much to hang your hat on these days. Yeah. It's sort of like Kool-Aid drinkers and that. next of kin, as I like to say. But somebody somewhere with some ability to rein him in is going to have to, I think, step in at some point and be the Howard Baker of this moment and prevent this country from going over the cliff. Because he is— I totally agree with you. He is in a desperate, dark place. And he is not the kind of person— he's not like Nixon who will just say, well, I guess I better leave the presidency. It's time for me to go. I'll get on the helicopter and wave goodbye. and do this. That's not Donald Trump. He is in a bunker mentality.

He's building a bunker at the White House. He wants to put snipers on top of a crazy-ass arch by the Lincoln Memorial. If you've been around the White House grounds recently, it looks like a fortress with all the steel fencing and concrete fencing. This is the manifestation of somebody who's completely lost it. And so I do worry what happens when he is given a push by the voters and is rejected by the voters in a way that's destabilizing to him. And I think that's when the Democrats are going to have to meet the moment. They're going to have to be the grownups in the room and corral this madman, this gangster, and keep him from causing more destruction.

Yeah. And I agree with you. I have no idea who the Howard Baker is because I don't see any Howard Bakers out there. I don't either. Um, but, and I agree with you, it's going to get worse before it gets better. I hate to say that, um, but that's where we are anyway.

Yeah.

Jim, thank you so much. And thank all of you out there for listening to Psychopolitics. Uh, make sure you follow the feed so you don't miss an episode. And wherever you're, you know, get it wherever your favorite podcasts are. And, um, I'm also going to be on the Bulwark Pod with Tim on Thursday, the Bulwark Daily on Thursday, if you want to hear more from me. And we'll talk about this and we'll talk about a lot more. Thanks. And thanks, Jim. And thanks everyone for listening.

You bet, George. Thank you.