Is Trump Really Losing It? Canceled Interviews, Rambling Answers, and Increasingly Erratic Behavior Spark Speculation

Former President Donald Trump spent some 40 minutes swaying and bopping to his favorite show tunes as several rally-goers in the crowd experienced medical emergencies at the end of a town hall in Pennsylvania Monday night. The bizarre spectacle sparked what has become a tradition in our weird new era of politics: proclamations that Trump has truly, finally, lost it.

There’s other evidence to support the latest iteration of this oft-floated charge. The town hall spectacle was just the latest example of Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior on the campaign trail. It also comes as Trump has started to engage in something of a bunker campaign strategy, dodging another debate with Vice President Kamala Harris and mostly avoiding interviews with real journalists that might put him in trickier situations than his friendly sit-downs with Fox News hosts and YouTube influencers.

Trump’s rally in Oaks, Pennsylvania, was repeatedly interrupted as multiple attendees fainted in the heat. Instead of continuing the event, Trump opted to turn up his favorite music — including Andrew Lloyd Weber’s composed show tunes and The Village People’s iconic YMCA. At one point, he bizarrely asked the crowd if “anyone else would like to faint.”

This is not normal behavior, certainly not for someone running to serve once again as the leader of the free world. Taken on its own, it could be chalked up to Trump being Trump. He is, as Democrats delight in saying now, a “weirdo.” He’s known to deejay music for club members at Mar-a-Lago and has likely been fawned over so much that he truly believes everyone loves the songbook from Cats as much as he does.

Yet the cabaret-style singalong in Pennsylvania is not an isolated case of his recent bizarre behavior.

Shortly after the town hall songfest, in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, Trump took to social media to attack Harris for releasing her medical report that found her to be in “excellent health.” Trump, who has refused to release his own medical records (he claimed this week he is “too busy” to release them), claimed his opponent’s common seasonal allergies are “deeply serious.”

Now, Trump has always been a social media troll. And it’s true that his latest broadside is just as nonsensical as his attacks have always been, dating back to his time as the incoherent but incredibly entertaining host of The Apprentice.

Still, there’s something different about his current behavior. The biggest red flag is his performance in—and avoidance of—challenging settings that all candidates must face during presidential campaigns.

Kamala Harris was long criticized for doing the same but recently pivoted to engaging in more confrontational media appearances. On the other hand, Trump completely ducked a second Harris debate, absurdly claiming he was the champion of the first tete-a-tete (which even Fox News elder statesman Brit Hume assessed as a “bad night” for Trump.)  Trump appeared exhausted and awkward in a recent podcast with The Barstool podcast, and at times came across as slurry and low-energy during a rally in Atlanta Tuesday night, ironically while mocking Harris rhetorical dependence on a teleprompter.

Then there are the cancelations. Joe Kernen, host of Squawk Box on CNBC and known Trump fan, said Tuesday that the former president bailed on an interview with them. This came days after 60 Minutes revealed that Trump had bailed on an interview with the iconic news magazine for its presidential special. Harris showed up to face questions from Bill Whitaker. The millions who tuned in were informed that Trump, after agreeing to an interview, pulled out, and for reasons that should make any objective person blush.

To be clear, Trump hasn’t been in hiding. Since the September 10 debate, he’s had dozens of media appearances. Still, nearly every single one was for a notably friendly outlet like Fox News, Newsmax, Salem Media, or Right Side Broadcasting.

This ended Tuesday when he joined Bloomberg’s John Mickelthwaite for a contentious discussion about his economic policy. Mickelthwaite pressed Trump on his more controversial policy proposals — including his tariffs and massive spending plan that would balloon the national debt — and Trump responded by changing the subject and attacking his interlocutor. The whole thing was bizarre and went poorly, perhaps best evidenced by the forced and fawning praise of Trump’s top toadies that would make Baghdad Bob cringe.

When pundits accuse Trump of having “lost it,” they usually mean his mental state has declined to some new, lower plane. No one can diagnose Trump, of course, but that doesn’t mean analyzing whether his famously rambling and incoherent rhetoric has gotten worse isn’t a popular parlor game in green rooms and on the air of certain cable news outlets.

I’d argue that the “it” that he’s lost is not his marbles; he’s lost his mojo. He’s completely lost any sense of self-awareness, which is a clear symptom of being constantly surrounded by suck-ups and sycophants eager to gain favor with constant praise and adoration. Trump may have relied on minds that could advise and guide him with constructive criticism in 2016. Those voices have dwindled, having been driven out by Trump’s mania and reckless behavior.

Trump is a 78-year-old man so prone to rambling tangents that he’s begun to defend his elliptical manner of speaking by calling it “The Weave.” No, that’s not a self-effacing dig on his hair.

The tangential and elliptical manner in which Trump answers questions is almost impossible to follow. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump recently analyzed a recent answer Trump provided at Monday’s town hall about his plans to lower inflation. “We’re going to do a lot of things,” is about the only material thing that emerged from his rambling answer, which never actually addressed concerns over inflation but did pivot to immigration and Hannibal Lecter (of course).

Reading the footnoted transcript is like looking into a window into someone’s disorganized mind that’s completely unhinged from reality. And suddenly, you realize why Trump’s campaign handlers are almost exclusively booking him for events with his biggest fans, like Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, who hosted a town hall focused on women’s issues that is set to air Wednesday.

Sources close to the Trump campaign have made it clear to me that the issue with Trump’s answers have less to do with his cognitive ability (though allow its a fair question), and more to do with the bubble of ass-kissers he’s constantly surrounded by. Chris LaCivita and Susie Wells are well-regarded campaign professionals. Look to Trump’s bringing back his favorite campaign muse, Corey Lewandowski – who seems most adept at letting Trump be Trump — as the best example of this dynamic.

For the sake of the argument, let’s assume that Trump’s odd behavior as of late is just Trump being Trump. Fine. That doesn’t account for why Trump is so cautiously avoiding interviews outside his like-minded bubble. Why is he so afraid to venture outside the realm of suck-ups who likely profess a love of Streisand and Cats dreck that he played at Monday night’s rally?

Trump derides media outlets all the time but assiduously avoids interacting with anyone who has the gumption to call him out on any number of inconsistencies or inflammatory rhetoric. It’s like the “Emperor’s New Clothes” parable: The emperor would never know he was walking around naked if there was no one to call him out.

Trump likes to call Kamala Harris “dumb” (and worse). If he genuinely believes that, he should be relishing the opportunity to get her on the debate stage one last time before the election.

Unless, of course, he’s lost it.

 

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.