Back in March, Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan asked Sen. Dan Sullivan if he was comfortable with Donald Trump’s mental fitness to serve as president again. “Yes, yes. Compared to the current president? One hundred and ten percent,” Sullivan replied. “I don’t even think it’s a close call when you see the two in action.”
That comparison is no longer valid. President Joe Biden has dropped out of the race. Vice-President Kamala Harris is now the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee. But Sullivan also needs to be asked the question again given Trump’s further descent into delusional thinking.
Brennan had him on her show primarily to discuss military aid that Ukraine desperately needed to continue its defense against Russian invaders. They spoke about the supplemental national security bill that Sullivan supported. The Senate had passed it, but it was being held up by House Republicans.
In fact, for five months, they had refused to vote on additional funding.
Brennan remarked that “it would help if Donald Trump endorsed this package. He hasn’t done it.” Then she played a recent video of him discussing the issue in which he said Russian President Vladimir Putin “has so little respect for Obama.” That was the seventh time in six months that he confused Biden with former president Barack Obama. And it served as the preface to Brennen’s question about Trump’s mental fitness.
Today a political talk show host could lead in with a variety of far more embarrassing statements Trump has made. Twice in the past week he speculated Biden was going to recant his withdrawal and demand to be confirmed as the party’s nominee. He claimed the crowd of supporters who greeted Harris at a Detroit airport didn’t exist and called for her in a social media message to be disqualified from running “because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE.”
He’s also attempting to erase the video recorded past of him engaged in a common rally cry about Hillary Clinton from his 2016 campaign.
“They used to say, lock her up, lock her up,” he said at a press conference last Thursday. “And I’d say, just relax, please.”
That’s far from the most outrageous lie he’s ever told. What’s alarming though is the answer John Bolton gave to a question about it.
“Trump can’t tell the difference between what’s true and what’s false,” he explained to Kaitlin Collins on CNN. “It’s not that he lies a lot because, to lie, you have to do it consciously. He just can’t tell the difference. So he makes up what he wants to say at any given time.”
Bolton’s observation is based on the year and a half in which he served as Trump’s national security advisor. In that capacity, he’s one of the very few people who was with Trump during the meetings and phone calls he had with Putin.
On Monday, Collins turned to Bolton again after a two-hour live conversation in which Trump told Elon Musk that he warned Putin not to invade Ukraine.
“I don’t think it happened,” he said. “And I don’t think that there was really an occasion for Trump to have that conversation. But it fits the persona that Trump thinks he has.”
Bolton also believes “Putin thinks Trump is an easy mark. He doesn’t respect him, but he understands that using flattery with Trump can get him a long way.”
Of course, insincere flattery is extremely effective on people who are detached from reality. That’s why Bolton thinks in negotiations to end the war between Ukraine and Russia, “Putin will take Trump to the cleaners to the Ukraine’s detriment.”
Bolton isn’t the only former member of Trump’s inner circle who recognizes the problem. James Mattis was secretary of defense. John Kelly served as his chief of staff. Both retired U.S. Marine Corps generals have directed harsh criticism at Trump and have refused to endorse him.
Sullivan has been ignoring their warnings for years.
Democrats had similarly been in denial about Biden’s declining mental acuity. But after his debate performance on June 27, they pressured him into withdrawing from the race.
With Sullivan’s help, Trump is in it to stay. And if he wins in November, Republicans will have succeeded in presenting Putin and all our adversaries with an America weakened by a mentally impaired president.
• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.
