The elephant in the room - Donald Trump's physical and mental deterioration

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Reporting on Mr. Trump's "Cabinet Meeting" today has been far too kind. It's a 10-minute long stream of consciousness. Followed by Mr. Trump then ignores a question to spout more nonsense, including his bizarre theory that not knowing who the people working for him in the White House are is somehow to his credit.

After a single question, the press are shouted at by staff until they leave then room, while Mr. Trump repeatedly twists his mouth into "thank you" like a broken robot, interrupted only by one shouted question on China, which gets a typical reflexive Trumpian reply that is absent of all meaning, yet somehow manages to make things worse.

Here's the full video on C-SPAN:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?466591-1/president-trump-criticizes-press-health-speculation-physical-exam

This man is not mentally competent.

Also, he does not stand, rise, or walk during the meeting. It will be interesting to see if he does walk on his own on camera in the future, or if yellicopter sessions have come to an end.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Surprise physical at Walter Reed. (Walter Reed is under executive branch contol and appears willing to lie for Mr. Trump.) White House is putting a "nothing to see here" spin on it.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-undergoes-part-of-his-physical-months-ahead-of-schedule/

According to the White House, it's "Phase 1" of the regular examination. However, I'm not really buying it after seeing various reports on this.

"Phase one?" What is he, f***ing Marvel Studios all of a sudden?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Surprise physical at Walter Reed. (Walter Reed is under executive branch contol and appears willing to lie for Mr. Trump.) White House is putting a "nothing to see here" spin on it.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-undergoes-part-of-his-physical-months-ahead-of-schedule/

According to the White House, it's "Phase 1" of the regular examination. However, I'm not really buying it after seeing various reports on this.

Sounds like they expect him to be going back again. He's going to be having his annual physical in three or four stages between now and the end of February.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Yellicopter session on South Lawn.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?466638-1/president-denies-quid-pro-quo-ambassador-sondland

Mr. Trump appears to be back, reading from very large notes, shouting "I want nothing". Refuses to take questions and manages to yell for less than five minutes.

[T'Chenka]

Yellicopter session on South Lawn.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?466638-1/president-denies-quid-pro-quo-ambassador-sondland

Mr. Trump appears to be back, reading from very large notes, shouting "I want nothing". Refuses to take questions and manages to yell for less than five minutes.

That's very Buddhist, other than the yelling.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Mr. Trump raved and spouted conspiracy theories over the phone for the better part of an hour in response to prompts from the Fox & Friends hosts earlier today. There's a partial transcript here. In addition to publicly settling once and for all the question of whether or not he yells into the phone (he does), the hour-long stream of nonsense put one more heavy (but scarcely needed) nail in the coffin of Donald Trump's sanity.

(Given his habit on projection, and the fact that he calls three different Democrats insane during the rant, I suspect someone has told Mr. Trump he's mentally ill.)

CNN summarized some of the more notable moments, but missed a few, like Mr. Trump confessing to obstruction of justice, and explaining that he's electrified the Mexican border and Mr. Trump's explanation that, "I do want, always, corruption" although they did get "Well a lot of things are the matter with me."

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/NYinLA2121/status/1199190496490344448


Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Donnie Dummkopf.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Donald Trump raves incoherently at NATO summit in London:

Q    Mr. President, you’re here in London.  Are you going to be seeing Prime Minister Johnson?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Yes.

Q    And do you have any thoughts on the upcoming election?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  I have no thoughts on it.  It’s going to be a very important election for this great country.  But I have no thoughts on it.  I will be meeting with him, yes.

Good relationship with Turkey.  We left their border.  We’ve been on their border long enough.  They’re doing just fine on their border.  We kept the oil.  I kept the oil.  The only people we have over there now — we have a few that — a small group that are fighting the remnants of ISIS because they’ve popped up again and we put them down.

We’ve defeated the ISIS caliphate.  Nobody thought we could do that so quickly.  I did it very quickly.  When I came in, it was virtually 100 percent.  And I knocked it down to 0.  I knocked it down to 0.  But it pops up every once in a while.

Well, China has become very powerful and much more so than in the past.  They’ve done it, largely, with United States money, because our past Presidents allowed them to steal the cookie cutter.  And that’s okay — I don’t begrudge China for that.  I begrudge — I’m very disappointed in our past Presidents and leadership.  They allowed this to happen.  There’s no way it should’ve happened.

And, by the way, I’m doing very well in a deal with China, if I want to make it.  If I want to make it.  I don’t think it’s “if they want to make it”; it’s “if I want to make it.”  And we’ll see what happens.  But I’m doing very well, if I want to make a deal.  I don’t know that I want to make it, but you’re going to find out pretty soon.  We’ll surprise everybody.

From his shaky descent from Air Force One on Melania's arm, to nonstop lies and attacks on allies, to a refusal to say he'd honor America's treaty obligations  it's been an embarassing parade of Mr. Trump's own mental incompetence, peaking at a joint appearance with Secretary General Stoltenberg where his
slurring performance resembled the output of of an amateur chatbot punctuated with spikes of utter insanity.


I'm starting to wonder if the GOP dogged defense of isn't based on the idea that he'll be leaving office in the next six months due to failing health. (Of course, that doesn't explain why so many prominent Republicans keep repeating Putin's talking points.)

[Joe Republic]

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1201878215545020416





Then later:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1201887098049089538

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

I don't know if anyone has brought this up in the thread, but I was reminded of this on Morning Edition today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pickering_(judge)

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/MrDanZak/status/1203055010118094851

[Dr. Arch]

https://twitter.com/MrDanZak/status/1203055010118094851

My goodness...

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/MrDanZak/status/1203055010118094851

ABRIDGED!?

At least he acknowledged that he is vain. Some very rare honesty and introspection from our obtuse President.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/MrDanZak/status/1203055010118094851

Here's the full transcript:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-roundtable-small-business-red-tape-reduction-accomplishments/

Since this is an official public document, I see no reason not to quote a large part of it, including an excerpt that includes the full text of the abbreviated remarks above

And we’re doing other things.  The lightbulb: They got rid of the lightbulb that people got used to.  The new bulb is many times more expensive.  And I hate to say it, it doesn’t make you look as good.  Of course, being a vain person, that’s very important to me.  (Laughter.)  It’s like a — it gives you an orange look.  I don’t want an orange look.  (Laughter.)  Has anyone noticed that?  (Laughter.)  So we’ll have to change those bulbs in at least a couple of rooms where I am in the White House.  (Laughter.)

But we’re going back to the — it’s a double standard.  We have a standard of the new bulbs, and we have the old bulbs.  And they’re already making the old bulbs.  Many people were complaining that the new bulbs were much, much more expensive.  Many times, in some cases, more expensive.  And the other thing, they’re considered a hazardous waste that, because it’s largely a gas technology, when the bulb is disposed of, you’re supposed to bring it to a hazardous waste site.  I said, “How many people do that?”  “No- — nobody does it.”  And, you know, that’s a bad thing.

So you probably heard about it.  You probably read about it.  And you’ll be able to buy lightbulbs that actually are better lighting, in the opinion of many — and, I tell you, in my opinion — and for a lot less money.  And so we’re doing that.  But you’ll also be able — if you want, you can buy the other bulbs also.  And I’ll tell you, even the bulb companies are very happy about that.

But together, we’re defending the American workers.  We’re using common sense.  We have a situation where we’re looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on — in areas where there’s tremendous amounts of water, where the water rushes out to sea because you could never handle it — and you don’t get any water.  You turn on the faucet; you don’t get any water.  They take a shower and water comes dripping out.  It’s dripping out — very quietly dripping out.  People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once.  They end up using more water.  So, EPA is looking at that very strongly, at my suggestion.

You go into a new building or a new house or a new home, and they have standards, “Oh, you don’t get water.”  You can’t wash your hands, practically, there’s so little water comes out of the faucet.  And the end result is you leave the faucet on and it takes you much longer to wash your hands.  You end up using the same amount of water.

So we’re looking at, very seriously, at opening up the standard.  And there may be some areas where we’ll go the other route — desert areas.   But for the most part, you have many states where they have so much water that it comes down — it’s called rain — (laughter) — that they don’t know — they don’t know what to do with it.

So we’re going to be opening up that, I believe.  And we’re looking at changing the standards very soon.  And that’s a little bit like the lightbulb, where you get a bulb that’s better for much less money.  We go back — but you have the other alternative.  And you’ll keep the other alternative with sinks and showers, et cetera, too.  But that’s been a big problem.

Also, C-SPAN has video here:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?467150-1/president-trump-reacts-deadly-shooting-naval-air-station-pensacola

[GeorgiaModerate]

Regarding the toilet remarks, this is brilliant:

https://twitter.com/quinncy/status/1203700269957046273

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I haven't been keeping this thread current. Mr. Trump's vacations from reality have become nearly non-stop, as the rate of his public decay continues to accelerate. His everyday baseline now is close to the sort of intermittent events that led me to start this thread six months ago.

Last month, it was revealed Mr. Trump is often avoiding the Oval Office, preferring to "work" from the White House residence (with its golf simulator). (11/24/2019)

In the past two weeks we've seen:
A canceled press conference and early departure from the NATO summit (12/4/2019(
A rant over toilets and rain.(12/6/2019)
A day-long tweeting rampage. (12/8/2019)
Increasingly-obvious difficulty speaking (12/10/2019)
Planning to skip debates that are over 8 months away.(12/13/2019)

Anecdotally, his number of unscripted appearances also seems to have decreased, and he seems less functional when off-script.

I do not believe Donald Trump will make it to next November (and likely not even next summer) as the Republican nominee. If he somehow is the nominee, it will be as a malfunctioning stage prop.

[Joe Republic]

https://twitter.com/AynRandPaulRyan/status/1208013649492639744?s=20

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/AynRandPaulRyan/status/1208013649492639744?s=20

But Biden!

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1208881761855397888

We get "nice, conservitiv talkshow host" right out of the gate as he slurs his way along. But then halfway through the clip there's what looks to my non-medical-professional eye like a minor seizure. Mr. Trump does recover quickly from it and move on. (Like he's used to this...)

[junior chįmp]

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1208881761855397888

We get "nice, conservitiv talkshow host" right out of the gate as he slurs his way along. But then halfway through the clip there's what looks to my non-medical-professional eye like a minor seizure. Mr. Trump does recover quickly from it and move on. (Like he's used to this...)

Booooorreinnnggg

https://mobile.twitter.com/howroute/status/1208396292247949315

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/DrNikkiMartinez/status/1210829793312165888

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

This photo has been making the rounds for weeks, but I didn't want to post it until I'd tracked down a legitimate source for it. Here's the original:
https://twitter.com/RepChuck/status/1205292185589108736

[T'Chenka]

This photo has been making the rounds for weeks, but I didn't want to post it until I'd tracked down a legitimate source for it. Here's the original:
https://twitter.com/RepChuck/status/1205292185589108736

What's the significance of this photo exactly?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

This photo has been making the rounds for weeks, but I didn't want to post it until I'd tracked down a legitimate source for it. Here's the original:

What's the significance of this photo exactly?

The clear line on the side of his head where the orange facepaint stops.

Ignoring for the moment that painting his face orange has always been pretty insane, this makeup fail tells us two things. One, is that his personal grooming is starting to go - one more sign of his dementia. And two, no one is willing (or maybe able) to tell him to fix it.

(I snipped the original pic and tweet for size.)

[GP270watch]

This guy is a weirdo.