Trump Snarls ‘I Can Do What I Want’ On Fox News. Niece Mary says ‘He’s Losing It’

For a guy who’s reportedly going to be crowned king of his party tonight, Donald Trump doesn’t seem in as good a mood as you would expect. In fact he’s downright contentious this Tuesday morning, not the least bit jubilant and upbeat as you might anticipate. He appeared via phone on Fox News and they had the audacity to ask him about posting bonds in his court cases. It did not go well.

I hope the judge is listening.

— 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐢 (@ChidiNwatu) March 5, 2024

The message here is that Trump has money, lotsa lotsa money, he just doesn’t want to give it to those pesky bondspeople because he doesn’t like the case or the judge or the verdict. This is a ruse that Trump may believe on some level but it is not going to last forever. He is going to have to come up with money, and soon, or he is going to have his properties liquidated. It is as simple as that.

What we do know is that in December his trading cards’ value plunged substantially, so no money there. And we know that the manufacture of his sneakers has been delayed, so possibly the money he’s made from that is the only money he’s going to get from that particular venture. Meanwhile, his niece Mary Trump is pointing out the fact that Trump aides are virtually coming out of the woodwork to declare that the man is mentally unfit, not to mention the videos we see of his non stop gaffes, but the media isn’t covering it.

Donald’s confusion and verbal lapses are starting to get more attention from mental health professionals who are publicly speculating about what might be going on with him. And even former members of his administration are starting to speak up: […]

Just today, while speaking to CNN host John Berman, former White House advisor Alyssa Farah Griffin said that Donald’s cognitive difficulties seem to be getting worse:

“He is not as sharp as he was in 2016 and not even as sharp as he was in 2020,” she said.

Griffin is a Republican who served as Donald’s director of strategic communications. After Donald’s visit to Iowa, she called his apparent decline, “remarkable.”

“I’m stunned, having spent a lot of time with him in 2020 and years before — he is slowing down,” Griffin said.

“There’s a lack of sharpness in what he’s saying and a lack . . . of clarity,” she continued. “There’s another clip where he basically says he’s going to overturn Obamacare, but also says that he’ll fix it. Just complete inconsistencies.” Griffin, here, is saying the quiet part out loud.

Mary Trump goes on to discuss how she’s seen him deteriorate not only over the past eight years but over the past several decades.

Fewer than two weeks ago, I was on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell discussing something I think more people need to be aware of: It’s not simply that Donald makes gaffes and misstatements — it’s the degree to which his ability to communicate has deteriorated in recent years.

When Donald was younger, he was reasonably adept at getting his point across. He had the ability to make a perfectly reasonable statement, and to convey information clearly. One of the main reasons my grandfather chose Donald to succeed him instead of my father, the oldest son, was because Donald had the kind of arrogance that translated into a media presence my grandfather found useful.

Donald’s early interactions with the press, as well as his performances in depositions from the 1980s and 1990s — arrogant but measured and restrained — paint a very different picture from what we’re seeing now.

So here’s the set up: You’ve got a man suffering from dementia, who is under tremendous financial strain and he’s in denial about his finances. He cannot remain in that posture for very much longer. He has to pay a bondsman, or post the money himself, or his properties will pay the bondsman. In the state of mind Trump was in this morning on Fox News, that reality was not acknowledged. To hear him tell it, he’s just fine financially. He is far from fine.

And that leads us to the RNC meeting in three days, March 8. Unless I very much miss my guess, that’s the deep pocket that Trump depends upon to bail himself out. We could see a major clash between the RNC and the GOP nominee in just a few days. I don’t know how there can’t be — unless the resolutions to not pay Trump’s legal bills are simply voted down and the RNC becomes Trump’s piggy bank.

I don’t see that as a plausible outcome. Bottom line, there is a lot of big donor money in the GOP and I don’t see all those billionaires deciding to finance Donald Trump’s sinking ship. He does not have some smooth ride into the White House this fall and it’s virtually impossible that he could pull an inside straight like he did in 2016.

Plus, and this is key, it’s not just about Trump. There are down ballot races. The Senate is up for grabs. You think the RNC is going to forget about all those races and just give their wallet to Trump. Maybe they will. I just have to see it to believe it.

This is going to be some wild week, and it’s just getting started.