Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments. Last year, Trump was already showing signs of cognitive decline. It's getting worse.
Daniel Orton and Robert Birsel at Newsweek:
Tim Walz hit back at Donald Trump after the president used an ableist slur to attack him during a late-night online tirade against immigration.
Trump called the Minnesota governor “seriously retarded,” a term widely regarded as derogatory toward people with intellectual disabilities. Walz responded by calling for the release of the president’s recent MRI results, drawing renewed attention to questions surrounding the 79-year-old commander-in-chief's health.
Trump's health has drawn increased scrutiny in recent months after he was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a common condition in older adults. He also confirmed receiving an MRI at Walter Reed in October as part of what the White House described as a routine physical, though Trump told reporters he had “no idea what they analyzed.”
"Release the MRI results," Walz wrote, sharing a screenshot on X of Trump's lengthy Truth Social post in which he slammed immigration, attacked Walz and Somali-American Democratic Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, and pushed unsubstantiated claims about Somali immigrants.
Katie Rogers and Dylan Freedman at NYT:
According to a Times analysis of the official presidential schedules in a database maintained by Roll Call, Mr. Trump’s first official event starts later in the day. In 2017, the first year of his first term, Mr. Trump’s scheduled events started at 10:31 a.m. on average. By contrast, Mr. Trump in his second term has started scheduled events in the afternoon on average, at 12:08 p.m. His events end on average at around the same time as they did during the first year of his first term, shortly after 5 p.m.
The number of Mr. Trump’s total official appearances has decreased by 39 percent. In 2017, Mr. Trump held 1,688 official events between Jan. 20 and Nov. 25 of that year. For that same time period this year, Mr. Trump has appeared in 1,029 official events.
Mr. Trump still regularly comes down to the Oval Office after 11 a.m., according to a person familiar with his schedule. This routine is a holdover from his first term: After he complained about being overscheduled in the mornings, Mr. Trump kept so-called executive time hours in the White House residence before he headed downstairs for work....
Mr. Trump has long rambled in his speeches; during his 2024 campaign and in his second term, the meandering has often been noticeable. He can veer off script to share stories that are sometimes riddled with untruths, such as his false claim that his uncle, John Trump, had taught the domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski at M.I.T.
“I said, ‘What kind of a student was he, Uncle John, Dr. John Trump?’ He said, ‘What kind of a student?’ And then he said, ‘seriously good.’ He said he’d go around correcting everybody,” Mr. Trump said during a speech in Pennsylvania in July. “But it didn’t work out too well for him, didn’t work out too well, but it’s interesting in life. But I will say this that we have the greatest brains, we have the greatest power and we are going to have more electric.”
A rational president would ignore the story, confident that it would soon fade away. Instead, Trump spotlighted it.
Marina Dunbar at The Guardian:
Donald Trump lashed out on Wednesday against a New York Times reporter, calling her “ugly inside and out” in his latest personal insult against female members of the media after last week calling another “piggy”.
In a Truth Social post, Trump criticized the newspaper for an article suggesting he was running low on energy in his 80th year, insisting he had “never worked so hard in my life”.
Trump specifically targeted one of the authors. “The writer of the story, Katie Rogers, who is assigned to write only bad things about me, is a third rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out,” he wrote.
Rumors surrounding the president’s health have been circulating for months, with more questions raised after Trump admitted to having an MRI last month. He claimed it was part of a standard physical and would not reveal what body part the test had analyzed.
