By Jane Lewis | Thursday, December 04, 2025 | 5 min read

It says something about the moment we’re living in that the oldest man ever to be sworn in as president now delivers public remarks that feel as troubling as they are familiar. We’ve grown accustomed to the strangeness, the outbursts, the insults on cue. But every now and then, a moment breaks through that reminds you just how abnormal all of this has become. Trump’s tirade about Somali immigrants—many of them American citizens—was one of those moments. Even by the degraded standards of his rhetoric, the broad, demeaning swipes at Somali communities were jarring. “Not even believable,” he kept saying, as though repetition could stand in for substance. It was ugly, reckless, and sadly predictable.

What stood out even more was not only the content of the remarks but the physical presentation. His right hand, which in recent days appeared to be covered in makeup and bandages, stayed hidden beneath the table. It looked intentional. It looked like someone trying to manage what people could see. Trump has always been prone to these theatrical displays of grievance, but something about the way he held himself—guarded, agitated, strangely tired—had an unmistakable edge. For decades, he has trafficked in bigotry. That part isn’t new. What feels new is how much harder it seems for him to contain it.

That sense of erosion was even more pronounced the day before, during a cabinet meeting in which he seemed to drift in and out of alertness. The Washington Post reported that his eyes were closed for several minutes at a time, even as members of his administration praised him as the singular, tireless leader guiding the nation. Watching Marco Rubio extol Trump’s “implacable energy” while the president next to him appeared to be nodding off would have been funny if it weren’t so surreal. It captured something true about this presidency: the people around him see what the rest of us see, but they feel obligated to pretend otherwise.

The White House went into predictable defense mode, offering explanations that ranged from indignant to absurd. A loyal adviser joked that the president had only called him twice at 2 a.m. instead of three times, as though playing along would make the issue disappear. Fox News brought on a medical analyst to talk about the virtues of napping. The message was clear: there is nothing to see here, and if you think otherwise, you’re the problem.

Then came the odd turn into medical disclosure. Trump volunteered that he’d undergone an MRI “as part of his physical,” though he didn’t seem entirely clear on why it had been done. A short time later, he was calling the results “outstanding,” promising he’d release them if necessary, and assuring everyone that whatever had been examined was “as good as they’ve ever seen.”

His staff tried to close the loop with a bland statement about standard heart imaging and excellent health. Instead of settling the matter, the whole episode only made things murkier. No one expects a president to hand over every line of a medical chart, but the quick pivots, the vague explanations, and the defensiveness have a way of raising more questions than they quiet.

And even once the MRI summary was released, a lot of people greeted it with skepticism. That’s not a reaction that comes out of nowhere; it’s rooted in years of mixed messages and shifting stories about Trump’s health. During his first term, reports surfaced that he’d sent aides to recover his medical files from his longtime doctor—a dramatic episode that only deepened public doubt.

Whether or not every detail of those accounts was accurate, the impression it left has lingered. When leaders spend years keeping the public at arm’s length on matters this basic, trust erodes. And once that trust is gone, even the most routine medical update becomes another chapter in a story people no longer feel confident believing.

Beyond the spectacle, the broader concern is about governance. Whatever one thinks of Trump’s politics, it is increasingly hard to believe that he is fully steering the ship on a day-to-day basis. The workday has reportedly shortened. His public interactions have grown more erratic. He spends late nights posting hundreds of messages online, amplifying conspiracy theories and lashing out at critics. He bristles at reporters’ questions, sometimes forgetting details that matter, other times claiming ignorance altogether. When asked why he pardoned a figure accused of enabling terrorist financing, his response—“I don’t know who he is”—fell somewhere between alarming and dismissive.

The deeper issue isn’t simply whether Trump is in decline. It’s what that decline means when the presidency depends on projection, dominance, and an iron grip on his own party. His political power has always come from the perception that he alone could command loyalty, demand discipline, and keep everyone in line. That kind of authority doesn’t survive long if people begin to wonder how long he can sustain it. And some already seem to be wondering.

The country deserves honesty from its leaders. It deserves a government that doesn’t gaslight its citizens or insist that things plainly visible are illusions. Watching advisers contradict their own previous statements, watching officials try to rewrite events from one day to the next, leaves the public in an impossible position. Are they lying? Are they covering for someone who’s struggling? Or are they simply hoping we won’t notice?

We have to notice. We have to pay attention. Because a nation cannot function on denial alone. And the longer those closest to power pretend everything is fine, the harder it becomes to confront what might actually be happening behind the scenes.

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