Donald Trump spoke to reporters in the White House today during a photo-op with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. That was probably a bad idea, because the man appears to be degrading before our eyes. It is impossible to even characterize Trump's responses.
Asked about Puerto Rico, Trump insisted he has "a real understanding of Puerto Rico" and is "the best thing to that ever happened to Puerto Rico,” saying, "I have a real understanding of Puerto Rico. I've had jobs in Puerto Rico. I had I think the most successful - I owned the Miss Universe contest, pageants, and we had them in Puerto Rico, twice, and I'll tell you, we had tremendous successes. In fact, they said literally 100%, this never happens, I think it was close to 100, but 100% of the island itself was watching. They liked those pageants. I've had a great relationship with Puerto Rico. I'm the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico."
Trump appeared to both threaten to carry out genocide in Afghanistan and seek praise for not acting on it, saying he could win the war in Afghanistan "literally in ten days" if he wanted to: "I could win that war in a week. I just don't want to kill 10 million people. Does that make sense to you? I don't want to kill 10 million people. I have plans on Afghanistan that if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the earth. It would be gone. It would be over literally in ten days. And I don't want to do that, I don't want to go that route."
That he asked his questioner if it "made sense" to balk at killing 10 million human beings, as if he thought that would be the most confusing part, is ... intriguing.
On tensions in Kashmir: "I've heard so much about Kashmir. Such a beautiful name. It's supposed to be such a beautiful part of the world. But right now there's just bombs all over the place." He claimed that India requested that he mediate the India-Pakistan dispute; the Indian government denied any such request was made.
On Iran: "They lie a lot. We took down one of their drones. They say that doesn't happen. There's a lot of proof. It's called take a look at it on the ocean floor. Take your scuba gear and go look. [...] They're saying bad things. I'll tell you, it could go either way very easily. Very easily. And I'm ok either way it goes."
The man appears to be ... getting stupider? Getting more brazen about his prior stupidity? Overdosed on allergy medications? Increasingly desperate to substitute belligerence for policy? It's hard to even put words to what we're looking at.