Donald Trump's public behavior continues to get worse with each passing week. Whether caused by the escalating strain of an impeachment trial, a severe case of jet lag or something (cough) medical, Trump's performance in London earlier Tuesday was a spray of nonsense, bizarre claims, bullshitting, gaslighting, and possibly straight-up forgetting his own supposed policies. Pity other world leaders, forced to sit alongside a Twitter account turned real boy. Pity us, for being governed by one.
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Some, I repeat some, of the most bizarre moments:
• Asked whether the United States supports Iranian protesters challenging their government: "I don't want to comment on that, but the answer is no. But I don't want to comment." Aside from the indistinguishable-from-parody phrasing, both Trump's secretary of state and Donald Actual Trump himself publicly stated the exact opposite position in the last 24 hours. Does Trump even know what protesters the questioner was taking about? Did he forget his own stance? We don't know—but he soon reversed that position yet again.
• Trump badgered the French president in an excruciatingly strange exchange, asking him "Would you like some nice ISIS fighters? I could give them to you."
• Trump straight-up embraced the imperialist argument his staff apparently used as leverage to convince him to keep some U.S. troops in Syria, claiming that "We have taken the oil. I've taken the oil. We should have done it in other locations, frankly, where we were. I can name four of them right now, but we've taken the oil ... our great soldiers are right around the oil where we've got the oil."
• He again bragged of his close relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, even while calling him "Rocket Man." "I’m possibly the only one he has that kind of relationship with in the world."
• He refused to confirm that the United States would come to the aid of other NATO members who came under military attack.
• On climate change: "Climate change is very important to me. I've done many environmental impact statements over my life and I believe very strongly in very, very crystal clear, clean water and clean air. That's a big part of climate change." Donald Trump has previously declared climate change to be a "hoax" propagated by China in an attempt to weaken American industry. Further, pollution levels in the United States have increased during Trump's tenure, due in part to Trump administration refusals to enforce violations of the Clean Air Act. Those elevated pollution levels have caused nearly 10,000 premature deaths.
• He again revised his claims of how much his own actions have hurt China, claiming the Chinese economy is "down $32 trillion" because of his acts. This unexplained number continues to vary every time he makes the claim; since China's total gross domestic product in 2017 was $12 trillion, Trump is claiming that he harmed China to the tune of roughly three times their annual GDP.
• He called the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee "a maniac" and "a deranged human being." Further claimed, of his own phone call(s?) with the Ukrainian president: "I had legal scholars looking at the transcripts the other day and they said 'these are absolutely perfect, Trump is right when he uses the word.'" There is no evidence these legal scholars exist.
• He mused that in the future, when there is a "Democrat" president and a Republican House, Republicans will "hopefully" impeach that president in retaliation for the current impeachment inquiry. "They’ll do the same thing. Because somebody picked an orange out of a refrigerator and you don’t like it, so let’s go and impeach him." This is a baffling statement in any number of ways, but is perhaps dangerous to dwell on.
This is just from one morning's worth of press appearances. He appears to have no idea what his own policies are, no recollection of what they were, and is still inventing invisible supporters and imaginary successes. And he is still, and with fervent Republican support, in charge of the nation's military and its nuclear weapons.