Serious Question for SB Republicans: How Much More Proof Do You Need that Your Boy is Clinically Demented?

You don't have to look very hard for evidence that the realityTV president is afflicted with senile dementia. Just read or listen to the actual words that come out of his mouth - and don't look away.

(Editor’s note: This piece was originally published by The Bulwark on Monday, under the headline “Trump is not have all the mentals. McDonald’s. Water. Sir! (Very strong).” /jr).

By Jonathan V. Last /The Bulwark

1. Sundown

The president of the United States gave a speech on Monday before a group of McDonald’s corporate workers and franchise owners.

I’m going to quote a few sections of his remarks at great length, because if you have not listened to Trump speaking recently, the decline in his cognitive abilities is a bit shocking.

The point of this exercise is not to clown on Trump, but to give everyone a baseline understanding of where he is, with the mentals, as we try to understand how he will respond to increasing pressures in the coming months.

Below is the video of his remarks. I’ll include timestamps for each section, in case you want to see what he looks and sounds like.

Bottom line: This is a man in noticeable mental decline.

Invisible guests. Here is Trump at the very beginning (1:40) doing the litany of greetings and salutations that begin presidential speeches:

But I want to thank, uh, as you know the famous Sundar and Sergey, Sergey Brin. These are two guys that own and run a place called Google. They called me the following day after I did that McDonald’s little um, skit, because it was it wasn’t a commercial. You got it for nothing. It was a skit and they told me that it and I didn’t know them. I just I said, “Who are they?” They own Google. I said, “That’s pretty good. That’s not bad.”

And uh that it received more hits than anything else in the history of Google and that records, it still stands.

Did Sundar Pichai and Sergey Brin call Donald Trump on October 21, 2024? Did they tell him that in just twenty-four hours he’d gotten more “hits” than anything else in the history of Google? More than COVID? More than January 6th? More than Taylor Swift? What is a “hit” on Google?

But most importantly: It’s unclear whether Trump understands that Pichai and Brin were not in attendance at the McDonald’s speech. (At least I cannot find any evidence that either of them was there.) Trump sounds like he’s thanking people who aren’t there as if they were sitting in the front row.

Made-up nonsense. At the 10:30 mark Trump is clearly on-script doing an encomium to the virtues of McDonald’s before weaving off-script:

And late at night, your lights are often the only one still glowing when the long-haul trucker pulls up for a good meal. And a best Coca-Cola in America. Best Coca-Cola.

And I’ll bet they use real sugar in your Coca-Cola. You know, they didn’t in the United States. I said to the head of Coca-Cola, you got to go to sugar. They do in other countries. And you know what? They went to sugar. Isn’t that nice? I said, “You got to go to sugar.” Just like I said, why is the Gulf of Mexico called the Gulf of Mexico? I said, “We’re changing the name.” And now it’s the Gulf of America. Has nothing to do with McDonald’s, but maybe it does because it’s very nice cycle. We have 92 percent of the shoreline. They have 8 percent. I wouldn’t say I made a lot of friends in Mexico, but they still like me.

A few things of note: First, Coca-Cola has not reverted to sugar in the flagship product it sells in the United States. The U.S. portion of the Gulf coastline is 1,700 miles; the Mexican portion is 1,400 miles. This is not a 92–8 split.

What does Trump mean with “it’s [a] very nice cycle”? If you listen to the audio, he sounds drowsy here, as if he’s reaching for a word but can’t get there and so slides another, unrelated word, into its place. Resulting in nonsense.

A year of mental decline. A moment later (at the 12:19 mark) Trump goes back on-script for a section about small businesses, but then detours to talk in more detail about that October 20, 2024 campaign stunt where he worked at a McDonald’s drive-thru window for 30 minutes.

Watch how he veers from place to place:

As president, I want you to know that I’m fighting every day to support small businesses like yours and the citizens that we all serve. And together, we’re fighting for an economy where everyone can win. From the cashier starting her first job to a franchisee opening his first location to the young family in a drive-thru line.

I’ve been on that line many times. Actually, that line was incredible in the commercial. Right. It wasn’t a commercial. It was about, but, they have the line. The people had no idea. So I made the French fries. The guy was really good. He had a great wrist. He was, nyee, “Sir,” he was going like, “Sir.”

Yeah. It was not that easy but I got it sort of finally. Not the greatest but I pouring it in asking him all sorts of stupid questions but it was very interesting. Amazing, a little thing is not, it’s a little complex, right?

To father and son over there that own a lot. They’re very rich people. But I’ll tell you what, I asked, “How many do you have?” “Sir, I have fifty-nine.” I said, “You’re rich.”

But, but you know, nobody knew in the line. That line was a long line. They had 25,000 people. So, somebody let them know we were coming. It was toward the end of the campaign. And after I did the French fries and did some other things, I then stood at the window and the people would drive up a little bored in all fairness, you know, it is I mean they’re waiting for a hamburger, okay?

So they drive up like this. They look over. Whoa. Every one of them. And it was it was fascinating. Every one of them they they would it was the the response was incredible. Almost like I knew I was going to win when I saw that. I knew because the response was love. It was great. They had a good time. But we did, I think, twelve people.

Every one of them had the same response. They drive up, they this, they get that. Getting a little cash ready. And they look over and it was some did a double take. Some went like that. Whoa. But it was it was sort of an amazing moment.

Some of this is a bit. Just reading the transcript, the section where Trump talks about learning to make French fries sounds confused, but it’s not. He’s totally lucid here and it’s actually a funny performance.

But then he swerves into a half-thought—“To father and son over there that own a lot.” It’s almost as if his brain skipped a passage.

As for what actually transpired at that event: 25,000 people did not line up for the drive-thru at the Feasterville-Trevose McDonald’s in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Trump served a bag of fries to six cars, not twelve. (And not hamburgers.) None of the people had cash ready and none of them did a double-take. They had been selected by the campaign to be part of a photo-op.

I know what you’re thinking: This is just Trump embellishing. And that’s right. But I want you to listen to him recounting the story as it exists in his mind today and then contrast it with the video of him just one year ago actually in the McDonald’s.

He was noticeably more vigorous, energetic, and together a year ago.

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Water on the brain. At the 35:51 mark, he is on-script again talking about his administration’s attempt to roll back regulations. It goes sideways, fast, as he seems to get distracted by the word “water” and confuse two of his pet issues: water-flow restrictors on faucets and increasing water deliveries to farms.

This is a long passage, but you should stay with it. Because it’s wild.

Upon taking office, I signed an order requiring that for every new regulation, ten old job-killing regulations have to be eliminated. So if they if we put in a new regulation, then we get rid of ten.

Otherwise, you don’t get the new regulation. And you know, we got rid of the drip-drip water. We call it the drip-drip where drip drips out of the sink.

States with tremendous water. So much water, they have nothing but problems getting rid. They had restrictions on water. It comes down from heaven, right? They had restrictions on water. So, you want to wash your hands or like me, I want to wash my hair. I lather up and I turn that jet and I there’s no water. The water’s drip.

They call it, they put a restrictor on. I won’t mention the third item in the bathroom because I always get criticism. I used to mention that, but I don’t mention it anymore because you know what I’m I think you do. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you shouldn’t be owning a McDonald’s franchise. You, you wouldn’t do well even with a McDonald’s franchise.

But no, the water restrictions totally lifted. All restrictors are gone. And you know, it’s interesting. Your dishwashers were covered, right? You had no water. I was with some of the people that make them uh Whirlpool and others and they said, “Sir, they won’t give us the water to use in our dishwashers or use in our washing machines. The washing machines have no water. I mean, it’s like a glass of water, half a glass of water.

“We need water.” And I said, “How bad is it?” He said, “Well, like the dishwasher, they put their dishes in and they just keep pressing the button, bing-bing, bing, they end up using more water.” So, I gave them, as you know, unlimited water. Biden came back with a rigged election and he immediately restricted the water again. But I came back in immediately unrestricted again.

So now you have unlimited water to clean your damn dishes. Okay? And other things. Your hands. Didn’t you hate that? You walk in to wash your hands. I’m a big hands guy. I like to wash my hands.

You know, I used to hate shaking hands. Now, if you once you run for office, you better like shaking hands or you got a problem. You ever see a politician ‘No, I don’t want to shake hands. Can you do that?’ I don’t think you wouldn’t be a politician very long. I actually thought that with COVID that would be the end because you know they didn’t want you shake. I said, well, but then it came back a little bit slowly then eventually. But uh when you’re a politician, you have to shake hands.

So I like washing my hands and you go into sink. Oh, you know, new places generally. And you turn on the water and there’s literally no water. And how about the places that think they’re going to save a fortune, so they spend a lot of money where the water turns off. You press the thing, which you hate to do. You know, your hands, you don’t like to press. So you get the towel, you touch, you press it, you wash it, and the water stops.

So they have both a restrictor and a stopper. You get like four drops of water. Tell me, do we really get rich with that? Okay. Do we really? This is so ridiculous. So I undid all of that nonsense.

But we did much more important for you. We’ve rescinded the insane Biden energy regulations on ovens, cooktops, microwaves, and ice makers that were driving your costs through the roof. You have no longer restrictions in that. I hope you understand.

I think I do understand.

Bottom line. Trump has a playlist of grievances and stories in his head. He spits them out somewhat randomly. This is the weave and it’s always been part of his charm.

But what seems to be happening here is that Trump can’t tell his stories apart. He starts talking about flow restrictions on faucets, which brings him to water. But the word “water” triggers another of his obsessions—water supply issues and deliveries to farms in the American West.

And his brain now mushes these two stories together into a single, unintelligible blob.

Keep all of this in mind as we enter the middlegame.

Bulwark Editor Jonathan V. Last writes “The Triad” almost-daily newsletter. You can subscribe here.

Cartoon: The New York Daily News.