Trump’s Angry, Crazed Eruption over Cognitive Test Backfires on Itself

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4 • 800 Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On Air Force One, President Donald Trump unleashed a bizarre, angry, rambling rant about the cognitive test he supposedly aced this weekend. Worse, he compared himself cognitively to two Democrats who both happen to be nonwhite women. This rant backfired on itself: It revealed his worsening mental unfitness, his naked racism, his effort to normalize his belittling of nonwhite members of Congress and his ongoing attacks on democracy, and more. In today’s installment, New Republic contributing editor Meredith Shiner, who regularly critiques press coverage of this administration, paints a powerful picture of the horrors this administration is visiting on everyday people, including in Chicago, where she lives. She argues that the press should connect Trump’s mental decline directly to these real-world impacts by highlighting who’s really running things behind the scenes, and discusses how Democrats might drive home the horrific human toll of it all. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:16.4	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
0:32.6	On Air Force One, President Donald Trump unleashed a bizarre, angry, rambling rant about the possibility that he might run for a third term and about the cognitive test he supposedly aced this weekend. Things got even
0:40.3	worse when he compared himself cognitively to two Democrats, who both happened to be non-white women.
0:47.0	In addition to the naked race-baiting on display here, Trump is clearly very sensitive about perceptions
0:52.9	of his mental decline.
0:55.1	Yet, broadly speaking, mainstream media organizations still refuse to cover what's obvious.
1:00.6	He's plainly unfit for the job and getting worse daily.
1:04.2	Of course, it's also true that this unfitness hasn't impacted him politically in the past as much as we think it should.
1:10.2	So is there any way to
1:11.2	make this issue matter more? What could Democrats do in that regard? Should they do more?
1:16.6	We're discussing all this with writer Meredith Shiner, a contributing editor at the New Republic,
1:21.3	who regularly critiques media coverage of the current administration. Meredith, nice to have you on.
1:26.6	Thanks for having me, Greg. So let's start
1:29.2	with what Trump said to reporters. The topic was whether he'll run for a third term. He said there
1:34.4	are good Republican candidates for 2028, and then things kind of went awry. The whole thing is
1:39.4	worth listening to. We have JD, obviously, the vice president is great. I think Arco is great. I think I'm not
1:47.8	sure if anybody would run against us. I think if they have a form in a group, it would be
1:52.4	unstoppable. I really do, I believe that. I would, I would love to do it. I have my best
1:59.3	numbers ever. It's very terrible. I have my best numbers ever. It's very terrible.
2:01.6	I have my best numbers.
2:02.6	If you read it, am I not ruling it out?
	...

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