Trump’s weekend social media frenzy raises new questions

[0:00] To President Trump, who spent most of his Saturday posting on his Truth Social platform. [0:04] Again, the president's first post at 11.15 a.m. was a more than 700-word rant about a federal [0:11] judge who on Friday ruled that the Kennedy Center must remove Trump's name from the building. [0:18] Over the next 14 hours, Trump posted more than 60 times, finally ending at just after 1 a.m. [0:25] Sunday morning. His social media spree included political memes attacking his perceived political [0:32] rivals, memes about crime under his administration compared to former President Biden, multiple [0:38] AI-generated pictures, including two separate posts of Trump on Mount Rushmore, and at least [0:43] three posts with George Washington, one of which was the two men on horses near a Trump-branded [0:51] NASCAR vehicle with the Washington Monument and the White House in the background, and [0:57] for good measure, a space shuttle flying over them. [1:01] You know, Katty, you know, this is not going to help the accusations that President Trump [1:06] is focused solely on himself and his own priorities. [1:10] We'll have more to say about that Kennedy Center decision later in the show, but that clearly [1:15] triggered a lot of anger from Trump. [1:21] You know, twin that with what we heard from Kevin Hassett at the top of the show, you know, [1:25] his sound suggesting that there's really not a lot of recognition from this administration [1:31] that, A, the number one priority for most Americans is the economy and the cost of things, and B, [1:39] they're not focusing at all on how to address it. [1:42] Instead, they're simply concerned about other things, mostly things, to enhance Trump's [1:48] legacy in Washington. [1:50] Look, I mean, you know, it's pretty clear where the president's head is at at the moment. [1:54] He's had this long-running war with Iran, long by his standards, not long, of course, by [1:59] international standards, that is not going well. [2:02] He's deeply frustrated by that. [2:04] When he hits a roadblock in the pet things that he is really focused on and that he feels [2:09] a part of his legacy, like the Kennedy Center, and like the Reflecting Pool, then he gets [2:16] peeved. [2:17] And when he gets peeved, he reaches for his phone. [2:20] And no matter how many people around him say it would be better to take the president's [2:25] phone away from him during the course of particularly weekend nights, he doesn't want to do that. [2:30] I mean, Jim, when you saw that over the weekend, I saw it. [2:33] I actually had a long conversation on Saturday. [2:36] I was chatting to an international economist who was saying to me, look, we are about to [2:39] hit a moment where the Straits of Hormuz could get much, much worse for Americans. [2:43] They don't understand what could be coming in two or three weeks' time. [2:46] But then you see how firmly the president is not wanting to really engage with prices, [2:52] even with Iran. [2:53] He's done. [2:53] I mean, he clearly wants to get out of there, even if he can't find a way out of there. [2:57] And he wants to focus on things like that. [3:00] Maybe he feels this serves him well. [3:02] It clearly doesn't serve Republicans well. [3:05] They're clearly frustrated. [3:07] People around him want him to get back on message. [3:09] What's his thinking about what this does for him? [3:12] Yeah, I mean, first, I think we need to step back. [3:14] Not that I'm asking you on Monday morning to play armchair psychologist of Donald Trump. [3:17] You need to appreciate that, like, whether you laugh, you cringe, or you cheer, these are [3:22] the unfiltered words of the president of the United States in real time. [3:26] Everything we know is he's either typing them himself or doing it through an aide. [3:30] We've never had this in human history, where you've had a leader who's telling you in real [3:35] time what's on his mind. [3:36] So you should read those things, because he's telling you exactly what's on his mind. [3:40] And I think to a lot of us who think about politics, think about governance, think about [3:44] this moment, we're like, wow, this is some weird stuff to be fixating on at 1 o'clock [3:48] in the morning. [3:49] But it is what he's fixating on. [3:50] The reason he's fixating it on is he feels trapped right now. [3:54] He feels like, you know what, I'm crushing it in these elections. [3:58] Anybody I want elected gets elected. [4:00] Almost every single member of Congress who has an R next to their name is my person. [4:05] They'll do whatever I want. [4:07] Yes, maybe five or six people break. [4:09] But I have never been more powerful inside my party. [4:13] However, outside of that, the walls seem to be closing in. [4:18] He can't get what he wants in Iran. [4:20] He can't get what he wants in Ukraine. [4:21] He can't get what he wants in Gaza. [4:23] He can't tell the courts how the courts are going to rule on things like the Kennedy Center. [4:28] So reality is closing in. [4:29] Even these artists that they, you know, kind of like throwback artists, if you want to [4:33] be charitable, that are going to be at the 250th anniversary, they're just canceling. [4:38] They're like, I don't want to be a part of this. [4:39] He can't control that. [4:41] So these things that he can't control are closing in. [4:44] When that happens, this is what he does. [4:46] And there's nobody inside the White House, not a single person who can say, Mr. President, [4:50] with all due respect, we should probably be talking about prices or talking about some [4:54] other topic. [4:55] They just let Trump be Trump because they feel like, and they have some evidence to support [4:59] that, that what he's done over time has helped him get elected and stay very powerful with [5:04] his specific base. [5:05] But this is where we're at. [5:06] And people should take the time to read these because those are the unfiltered words of the [5:11] president of the United States in real time, the things that he cares mostly about, and [5:15] then make your own determination. [5:18] As for that 250th concert, so many artists, and it was already a pretty B-list lineup, but [5:23] so many artists were canceling that Trump now has just pulled down the whole thing, said, [5:27] well, we're going to get rid of the concert. [5:28] I'm just going to give a rally, you know, making the 250th anniversary of this country even [5:33] more about himself. [5:35] You know, certainly, Reverend Sharpton, you know, this latest spree, I mean, you know, [5:40] Jeff Vanna High is right, it tells us where he is, what his mindset is. [5:44] And yeah, he's remarkably powerful in the Republican Party. [5:47] He's also polling in the mid-30s. [5:49] And we should just note, this is not the first time he's had one of these sprees. [5:53] In fact, far from the first time. [5:55] He's had a bunch lately. [5:57] And it's also adding to increased speculation about his sort of mental well-being and fitness [6:02] for the job. [6:02] I wrote a story a couple weeks ago noting the signs of age. [6:06] He turns 80 in just two weeks' time. [6:08] He had a physical last week. [6:10] The White House has provided very few details of what we learned there. [6:14] Other media outlets have also started to write about his age. [6:16] It's not received the scrutiny that President Biden's age did, not yet anyway. [6:20] But I think there are some, it is fair to ask questions about the mindset of this president [6:26] right now and his ability to govern this nation for all the people. [6:29] When you see how he just incessantly mocked President Biden, and he's acting more erratic [6:39] than President Biden ever did on his worst day, it shows to even his closest supporters [6:46] that there is something that is inconsistent here. [6:50] He's up in the middle of the night, then very early in the morning, then napping in the middle [6:56] of the day in public events. [6:59] It gives concern. [7:01] And then the things that he is doing, which is clearly all self-engaging, self-indulgent, [7:07] but not helping the very people that put him in power. [7:12] The affordability issue is a real issue. [7:14] It's not a partisan issue. [7:17] His people are paying gas prices $4.50 to $6 a gallon. [7:25] And he seems oblivious to that. [7:27] He's not on social media about that. [7:29] He's on social media about his pet peeves and about giving threats. [7:34] And it's irrational politically and concerning personally. [7:39] Yeah. [7:39] And not only are there not an aides in the White House who can tell him to put the phone [7:44] down, they don't even try. [7:46] There's no one in there who thinks that's their job.