Yesterday, the president decided to remind the entire world just how unstable he really is. Trump called into his favorite television show Fox & Friends and unleashed a paranoid, rambling rant so clearly unhinged that even the sycophantic, propaganda-peddling hosts were visually uncomfortable.
Rather than attending to his myriad presidential responsibilities, Trump bragged about his electoral win, using it as an opportunity to bash the “fake news” that said he wouldn’t be able to win the presidency. He jumped from one topic to another, transitioning from admitting that he didn’t get First Lady Melania Trump a birthday present, to talk about Iran, to the “witch hunt” he’s convinced he’s a victim of, to North Korea, to his lawyer Michael Cohen.
At one point host Brian Kilmeade — one of the most obsequious Trump toadies currently on air — suggested that Trump should simply stop watching news he doesn’t like. In response, the president made the clearly absurd statement that he doesn’t watch the “fake news” networks, a lie that was preemptively undone by the complaints he uttered just seconds before. If he didn’t actually watch them, he wouldn’t know to whine about them.
The hosts were unable to get a word in until Kilmeade finally pushed the president off the phone, helping him save face by saying that Trump had a lot of things to go tend to. The entire segment was utterly pathetic.
Trump begins @foxandfriends interview by saying he chose to do it today because it's Melania's birthday, but can't say what he got her for a present ("maybe not so much") pic.twitter.com/yIG0NR1t9T
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2018
Trump on him meddling in DOJ: Because of the fact that they have this witch-hunt going on against the president of the United States, I have taken the position, and I don't have to take this position and maybe I'll change, that I will not be involved with the Justice Department." pic.twitter.com/ZRTbTXz9PE
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2018
TRUMP on his performance as president: "I'm fighting a battle against a horrible group of deep-seeded people — drain the swamp — that are coming up with all sorts of phony charges, & they're not bringing up real charges against the other side. So we have a phony deal going on." pic.twitter.com/KeYdG9Ob0y
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2018
Trump concludes @foxandfriends interview by screaming about conflicts of interest on Robert Mueller's team, and promising to meddle more aggressively in the Department of Justice going forward. pic.twitter.com/ITak7tEEJJ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2018
The entire, lengthy performance was deeply disturbing and under normal circumstances would unleash a firestorm of pundits questioning the president’s mental fitness. Instead, we’ve become so inured to the president’s antics that this absurd segment barely registered as a blip in the national discourse.
Luckily, CNN’s Anderson Cooper refused to let it slide, and accurately pointed out the manner in which Trump has degraded his office by rendering statements from the White House irrelevant.
During a conversation with Trump apologist Alan Dershowitz, Cooper pointed out how ridiculous it is that the country has simply come to expect such behavior from the president.
“It’s kind of surreal that we are in a place now as a country where we’re like ‘Oh don’t listen to the president’ like he’s a crazy person on a park bench with an onion tied to his belt just mumbling incoherently. You’re saying don’t parse his words. You’re saying essentially don’t listen to him, don’t pay attention to the words that come out of his mouth because they really have no meaning. I mean that’s really what you’res saying,” Cooper said to Dershowitz.
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