My mother-in-law spent her last couple of years in a care home specialising in mild dementia cases, and it wasn't unusual when we visited to find ourselves in slightly bizarre conversations with other patients in the public areas. I swear they were more lucid than yesterday's press conference-cum-cabinet meeting at the White House, which increasingly has the appearance of a secure institution for one man, while those around him humour his wild, off-the-wall ramblings. The terrifying thing is that the man happens to be Donald Trump, the President of the USA and the head of the most powerful military force in history.
Like my M-I-L, he seems completely oblivious to his failing mental capacity and even boasts about having taken three cognitive tests. Listen to this:
Trump: "I'm the only president that ever took a cognitive test. I took it 3 times. It's actually a very hard test for a lot of people. It wasn't hard for me. It starts off with an easy question and by the time you get to the middle it gets tougher -- mathematical equations and things."— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 26 March 2026 at 16:16
According to the Cleveland Clinic, a healthcare practitioner may recommend a cognitive test if they suspect mental decline or cognitive impairment, or some other issues with mental functioning. They tend to be very simple, 15-minute tests to see if you can memorise and name objects from a list, or spell words backwards, that sort of thing. It is not, as Trump seems to think, some kind of IQ test. It is something you wouldn't want to have to admit to, but he is so stupid that he actually boasts about it, as if it's an achievement.
Trump began reading a prepared statement from which he frequently departed, to put his own unhinged spin on or to relay an entirely irrelevant anecdote, where he essentially praised himself for anything and everything. After that, he invited senior members of his administration of misfits and incompetents to offer their own mad praise of him as the cult leader, which they all duly did. When any work gets done, I really don't know. It was completely insane.
You can see the whole thing (all one hour and 38 minutes of it) HERE.
Ann Applebaum, the wife of Poland's Foreign Minister, writing in The Atlantic a few days ago, says this of the president:
"Donald Trump does not think strategically. Nor does he think historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. He does not think about how his behavior in one place will change the behavior of other people in other places.
"He does not consider the wider implications of his decisions. He does not take responsibility when these decisions go wrong. Instead, he acts on whim and impulse, and when he changes his mind—when he feels new whims and new impulses—he simply lies about whatever he said or did before."
I think this sums him up well. As former Republican congressman Joe Walsh says:
"In fourteen months, Trump has turned America into a country that people around the world hate, fear, feel sorry for, laugh at, are sickened by, no longer believe in and want nothing to do with. I suppose when you put an absolutely stupid, cruel, corrupt, lawless, dishonest madman in the White House, that'll happen."
The war in Iran is just the latest example of his lack of thinking. It was recently reported that he gets a short daily briefing, which consists of video clips of buildings and other sites being hit by precision-guided bombs and missiles. It's like trying to run a nationwide supermarket business by watching random footage of one or two checkout tills. What does it tell you?
He claims negotiations to end the war are going very well, while Iran says there are no talks taking place at all, and most people seem to accept what the brutal Iranian regime says, rather than the leader of the free world. And Trump says nobody expected Iran to launch missiles at US bases in other countries in the region despite Iran writing a letter to the UN nine days before he launched his attack, declaring that is exactly what they would do.
Nothing that is happening in America or globally should come as a surprise. It's what happens, as Mr Walsh pointed out, when a madman rules the world.
