The new "Trump is unwell" talking point

quote:

---

Most significantly, I was told, Trump, always masterful in dealing with crowds, large or small, is no longer able to “read the room”—quickly size up the audience and let his instincts as a showman take over and get the audience engaged. It would have been refreshing, and perhaps unprecedented, for Trump to outline his views on foreign policy and give the assembled generals and admirals a chance to ask questions of their president. Instead, they got a reprise of Trump’s greatest triumphs. The president returned to one of his most misguided views—that of himself as a settler of wars. “I have settled so many wars since we’re here,” he said. “I’ve settled seven and yesterday we might have settled the biggest of them all,” referring to ongoing talks between Israel and Hamas. “Although,” Trump added, “I don’t know. Pakistan, India, was very big, both nuclear powers. I settled that.” There have been many newspaper reports from around the world disputing Trump’s accounts of the issues at hand, as well as his definition of what it means to “settle” a conflict.

A few minutes later, the president turned from discussing his success in solving the problems of military recruiting to a long harangue about a published report that Joe Biden used an autopen to sign documents and letters while in office.

The disclosure led to several minutes of unhinged contempt for his predecessor in front of senior officers who had served, presumably to the best of their abilities, during the Biden presidency. Trump professed his outrage at the use of the autopen, which is common for those officials in government and private life who receive vast amounts of mail. He said that military recruitment “during Biden’s four years—the autopen. I call him the autopen”—had fallen drastically. He then asked the assembled generals and admirals: “How would you like to have your thing signed by an autopen?”

He went on, according to a transcript: “When I have to sign for a general because we have beautiful paper, the gorgeous paper, I said throw a little more gold on it, they deserve it. Give me, I want the A paper, not the D paper. We used to sign a piece of garbage. I said this man is going to be a general, right?

“Yeah. I don’t want to use this. I want to use the big, beautiful firm paper. I want to use the real gold writing when you talk about the position. And they’re beautiful and—but how would you like to have that where you—some kid sitting in the back office is having it signed with an autopen? I thought about it and I thought about you people first, admirals, generals.

“I said somebody works his whole life, he gets into maybe the academies or wherever. But however you got there and you go through years of work and now you become an admiral or a general or whatever. And when you do, the president of the United States signs your commission, as you know, and that commission is beautifully displayed.

“And I sign it—actually, I love my signature, I really do. Everyone loves my signature. But I signed it very proudly. And I always think to myself, how can you have an autopen sign this? It’s just so disrespectful. To me it’s just totally disrespectful. And it turned out that almost everything [Biden] did was signed by autopen, except for when he gave his son, Hunter, a pardon. He signed that one.

“And that’s actually the worst signature I’ve ever seen. That was a bad—the autopen looks much better. But as leaders, our commitment to every patriot who puts on the uniform is to ensure that the American military remains the most lethal and dominant on the planet, not merely for a few years, but for decades and generations to come, for centuries.”

I present the above paragraphs to buttress the point of some of those on the inside in the Trump White House who have come to believe that the president clearly has diminished faculties and can no longer “read the room.”

---

quote:

---

That's just not going to work after 4 years of Biden.

---

quote:

---

" I will end these wars on day 1"

Today is day 262. Just worked a peace deal in Gaza.

---

quote:

---

That is not "ending wars left and right"

---