Donald Trump appears to be descending into dementia, and Republican congressional leaders should be held to account if they refuse to curb Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior and his efforts to extort personal benefits from his position and allow the president to continue to engage in retribution against his political enemies.
Mental health professionals are supposed to refrain from diagnosing people they have not personally examined, but it is increasingly apparent that something is not right in Trump’s head, particularly after he threatened to go to war with NATO allies over possession of Greenland and he, or an aide, posted a video on his social media depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.
The brief clip appeared in a video pushing conspiracies about the 2020 election. Invoking racist tropes, it depicted the Obamas’ faces superimposed on the bodies of cartoon apes dancing to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” The video was posted on Trump’s social media account at 11:44 p.m. ET Feb. 5.
The next morning, when White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked for comment, said, “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from”The Lion King.” Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
But when Republican senators Tim Scott of South Carolina, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, and Roger Wicker of Mississippi called out the racism behind the post, the White House announced at noon Feb. 6 the post, which they blamed on an “unidentified staffer, had been deleted. As soon as they could blame the post on a staffer, historian Heather Cox Richardson noted, Republicans rushed to condemn the post’s racism.
Later, on an Air Force One flight to Mar a Lago, Trump appeared unaware of the new White House talking points, as he confirmed he had posted the video himself, but said he would not apologize, because, he said, “I didn’t make a mistake.”
‘“I guess during the end of it, there was some kind of picture people don’t like. I wouldn’t like it either, but I didn’t see it,” Trump said. “I just, I looked at the first part, and it was really about voter fraud.”
Richardson wrote that the post exhibited both the president’s vile racism and his failing impulse control, it also seems to have been an attempt to use racism to break the growing coalition against him. As when federal authorities arrested Black journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort and Black protesters at a church in Minnesota while leaving White protesters free, Trump and his allies are hammering on racial fault lines. As with the ape trope, the White House went so far as to digitally alter a photograph of church protester and civil rights activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, who appeared to be quite composed during her arrest, to make her look blacker and as if she is sobbing in terror.
Richardson added, “Trump’s doubling down on racism reflects Americans’ growing disillusionment with him and his administration.”
Former White House attorney Ty Cobb claimed President Trump is experiencing a “significant decline” in his mental faculties, pointing to Trump’s Jan. 20 appearance at a White House press briefing to mark the anniversary of his return to the Oval Office.
“I think there’s been a significant decline. He’s always been driven by narcissism. But I think the dementia and the cognitive decline are, you know, palpable, as do many experts, including many physicians,” Cobb told MS NOW’s Ari Melber on “The Beat,” Jan. 20..
Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who served as a cardiologist for former Vice President Dick Cheney, on Jan. 19 pushed for a congressional inquiry into Trump’s fitness. Reiner noted a recent letter from Trump to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre featuring the president seemingly connecting his threats to acquire Greenland with not winning the 2025 the Nobel Peace Prize.
“This letter, and the fact that the president directed that it be distributed to other European countries, should trigger a bipartisan congressional inquiry into presidential fitness,” Reiner wrote on X.
In his first term, Trump in 2019 was accused of withholding approximately $250 million in congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine and a White House meeting for the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, to pressure Ukraine into announcing investigations into his political rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden. The House impeached him Dec. 18, 2019, on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted in the Senate in February 2020 on virtually party-line votes.
In his second term, Trump has shaken down law firms, universities, media corporations, trading partners and other private businesses to make payments, in some cases hundreds of millions of dollars, to avoid trouble with the administration. He has used threat of tariffs to force trading partners to make investments or change policies.
In the past year, Trump took control of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Acts and renamed it The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts and the, after the center found it difficult to get reputable artists to perform there, said he would close the center down for two years for renovations. Trump also renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace to Donald J. Trump United States Institute of Peace.
Trump also blocked federal funding for the Gateway tunnel—a critical infrastructure project that would add two additional rail tunnels connecting New Jersey and New York—unless Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to name Washington-Dulles International Airport and Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Station after Trump.
Trump canceled the $16 billion Gateway project during the government shutdown in October, using the cancellation as a bargaining chip. He thought canceling the funds would scare Democrats into agreeing to fund the government without getting any concessions from the GOP.
But even though the shutdown ended in November and the full appropriations packages passed Feb. 3, the administration had yet to release the Gateway money, and NBC News reported Trump tried to use the funds as a bargaining chip to get his name on the airport and railroad station.
Legislation introduced in the Senate Jan. 13 would retroactively prohibit naming or renaming of federal buildings, land, and other assets after sitting presidents, an effort to counter Trump’s moves to attach his personal brand to government infrastructure and programs.
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a lead sponso of the Stop Executive Renaming for Vanity and Ego (SERVE) Act, said Trump’s penchant for adding his name to federal structures and initiatives is not mere symbolism. It is part of his broader assault on US democracy and attempts to impose his will on the country.
“Our country desperately deserves leaders focused on working for the people—not their own ego or narcissism,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), another sponsor. “This necessary legislation prohibits the naming, or renaming, of any federal building or land in the name of a sitting president.”
It’s a start. But Trump must be removed from office. — JMC.
