Donald Trump is rapidly declining
At 3:13 this afternoon, Donald Trump walked onto the stage in Medora, North Dakota, having arrived in the small western town after flying into Bismarck on his inaugural ride aboard the 400 million dollar retrofitted Qatari jet that now serves as Air Force One. His signature song, Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” blasted through the speakers as he fist-pumped to the crowd, taking breaks every few steps before continuing toward the podium. Behind him stood men dressed up in Rough Rider reenactment costumes, with matching blue chambray shirts and cowboy hats. The presidential seal hung from the podium. An American flag waved nearby. Just beyond the stage sat the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, a new museum near the entrance to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, set to officially open to the public on July 4, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
As the song came to an end, he began speaking, pausing often as he continued struggling to catch his breath before launching into a troubling and increasingly incoherent speech that lasted over an hour. During it, he told the crowd he “had a conversation with Theodore Roosevelt.” Roosevelt died in 1919. Trump was born in 1946. One can only imagine that he was talking about an AI chatbot he interacted with inside the museum, but he described the exchange to the crowd as though it had been a real conversation.
In another shocking moment, one where he didn’t seem to realize what he was saying, after describing how Theodore Roosevelt and his son were one of only two father-son pairs to receive the Medal of Honor, Trump looked over at Don Jr. and Eric sitting in the audience, and the crowd audibly gasped after what he said. “Now, as I see my two beautiful sons sitting there, I think I’m going to give one to myself, one to them, and we’ll have a threesome. Okay, I’ll pick out one of the two. I’ll give them the Congressional Medal of Honor for something for their genius at hunting. And I’ll get one for taking on Russia, Russia, Russia or something.” He then added, “But I actually said a few times that I’ve seriously thought of giving myself the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
He was there for the dedication and ribbon-cutting of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. A ceremony meant to honor one of America’s most consequential presidents and reflect on the role Theodore Roosevelt played in shaping our country’s history, both the good and the bad. Instead, it became something much different. Less a celebration of Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy than another campaign-style rally built around the current president and his recycled talking points.
But what most Americans will remember is the ribbon-cutting, museum, or even the speeches about Theodore Roosevelt. They’ll remember watching a president whose mental struggles appear to be accelerating at an alarming pace. Because the rest of what he said and did over that hour was just as alarming. And in some cases, far more dangerous.
When the teleprompters broke early in the speech, he announced it himself: “I have two teleprompters that aren’t working. And here I stand.” And then later, without realizing what he was admitting, he turned the malfunction into a political metaphor. “It’s appropriate the one on my right is slightly better than the one on my left. The one on my left is a waste of time. It’s a little like politics. The one on my right is a little bit, it’s not great. I’d give it about a two on the scale of 10.”
He set up the comparison himself. The left is a waste of time and the right is only a two out of ten. He was so deep in that he did not hear what he had just said about his own party. He gave the Republican Party a two out of ten.
Even without a working teleprompter, he spoke for over an hour, struggling to hold a single thought. He pivoted from a story about Roosevelt chasing criminals to attacking the Biden administration’s border policies. From Roosevelt fighting the Spanish in Cuba in 1898 to threatening present-day Spain over the Iran war. He went from the Panama Canal to Venezuela to Iran in three sentences. He called Roosevelt “a great He-Man.” He told a long story, again, about a police officer whose wife thought he was an idiot until his 401(k) went up 84 percent. He said he knew more about the museum than the people who built it after a two-hour tour. He promised to give a “really long speech” on July 4th in 107-degree heat “just to show that I can do anything.” And then he attacked Biden’s cognitive fitness in a sentence that itself collapsed mid-thought: “They didn’t have people that didn’t couldn’t they had no idea where they were. They didn’t have people that couldn’t walk up the steps. See those steps? They didn’t have people that had no idea where the hell they were.”
He also lied about the UFC fight at the White House, an event that took place three weeks ago, on his own birthday. “This was one of the highest rated fights in history,” he said. “It was on CBS National on a Sunday night, not a Saturday night. Saturday nights are called Death Valley for television. I know a lot about ratings, but Sunday night’s very good. And it was broadcast on CBS, a network, and it got among the highest ratings any fight has ever gotten.”
It was not broadcast on CBS. Dana White himself announced on June 9 that the event would not be televised on CBS and would air exclusively on Paramount+, a paid streaming service. He either cannot remember how his own event was broadcast three weeks ago or he is fabricating it on purpose. Neither possibility is reassuring from the man who holds the nuclear codes. He closed the presidential library dedication by singing along to “Y.M.C.A.” on stage.
But here is the thing about the rambling and the lies. What they revealed was not just confusion, it was conviction. And that is where this stops being absurd and starts being terrifying. Because he was consistent with them. And at times what he said was profoundly racist.
Talking about how Roosevelt’s son also received the Medal of Honor, Trump said this: “His son was brave. It’s genetics. You know, it’s like the racehorse theory, right? Fast horses. “That phrase, “racehorse theory,” is not something most people say by accident. It is not a figure of speech. It is a term rooted in the eugenics movement, the pseudoscientific belief that some human bloodlines are genetically superior to others. Trump’s father, Fred Trump, raised him on this idea. Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio has said the Trump family has a “very deep” attraction to eugenics, including what he called the “racehorse theory of human development.” And Trump has invoked it publicly for years. In 2020, he told a nearly all-white crowd in Minnesota: “You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you believe? The racehorse theory.” In 2024, he told another audience: “We’ve got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”
And here is where the Roosevelt connection cuts deeper than most people realize. Theodore Roosevelt himself was one of the most prominent proponents of eugenics in American public life. The eugenics movement he championed helped pass the Immigration Act of 1924, which prevented immigration from Asia and severely restricted it from Eastern and Southern Europe for forty years. The theory itself was built on the analogy of breeding animals. Francis Galton, the man who invented the term eugenics, argued that what breeders do with horses and dogs, society should do with humans, writing that it would be “quite practicable to produce a highly gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations.” That is the origin of racehorse theory. Not a figure of speech. A founding principle. And when Trump invoked it at Roosevelt’s library, he was not making an awkward analogy. He was standing at the intersection of two men, a century apart, who share the same poisoned belief that some bloodlines are worth more than others.
And then there was this, on affirmative action: “Our country now is based again on merit. So, if you’re a student with very average marks and you looked a certain way or you acted a certain way or whatever and you get into the finest school in the world and then you’re somebody else that looked a certain way or acted a certain way and you have all A+’s and you have all great marks and board numbers that are through the roof, way above other people, but you don’t get in, they get in. It’s all over with.”
“Looked a certain way” is doing the work of saying race without saying race. In a speech that also invokes racehorse theory and argues that the 14th Amendment was only for “the babies of slaves,” the racial architecture is not subtle. It is consistent.
Throughout the speech, he branded all political opposition as communist. “They said they’re social democrats. Doesn’t it sound pretty? They’re actually communists.” He told the crowd that communism is “the biggest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, September 11th.” Labeling all opposition as communist is not a policy position. It is a foundational move of authoritarian regimes. And the targets of this label are disproportionately people of color.
Trump praised Theodore Roosevelt throughout the speech without fully understanding who he really was or what he spent his presidency fighting for. Roosevelt believed conservation wasn’t just about protecting beautiful places. He believed America’s public lands belonged to future generations, not corporations looking to profit from them. He championed breaking up monopolies, strengthening the federal government’s ability to protect ordinary Americans, preserving wildlife, and building institutions that served the public instead of political patronage. Those weren’t side projects. They were principles that defined his presidency. They are also principles this administration has spent months dismantling.
Roosevelt’s own great-grandson, Theodore Roosevelt IV, who serves on The Wilderness Society’s Governing Council, has publicly opposed what Trump and his Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are doing. He told the Star Tribune: “Unfortunately, the Republican Party no longer seems to care about conservation as it did during the time of Presidents Grant, Lincoln and the old lion.” The old lion. That is what Roosevelt’s own family calls him. And they are watching this administration dismantle his legacy while wrapping itself in his name.
The Center for Western Priorities put it even more plainly: “Teddy Roosevelt ended the Gilded Age. Donald Trump and Doug Burgum are using their power to do the opposite.” The irony is almost impossible to miss. Trump spent the afternoon celebrating Theodore Roosevelt while championing policies that undermine many of the very institutions Roosevelt helped build. He praised Roosevelt’s legacy while celebrating a Supreme Court decision that weakens the independence of the federal government Roosevelt believed should serve the public. He spoke admiringly of Roosevelt’s conservation ethic while his administration continues opening public lands to drilling, mining, and private development. He invoked Roosevelt’s name over and over again, just not Roosevelt’s values.
But history is rarely that simple. Theodore Roosevelt was a deeply complicated man and president. He was a visionary conservationist and trust-buster, but he also held racist views that reflected and reinforced what some might call the white supremacist thinking of his era. He embraced American imperialism, celebrated military conquest, and believed the United States had a duty to project its power beyond its borders. Those parts of his legacy deserve to be remembered too. We don’t honor history by sanding off its rough edges.
And that is what made the next part of Trump’s speech so revealing. In some ways, Trump wasn’t departing from Roosevelt’s legacy at all. He was echoing one of its darkest chapters.
Because layered atop everything else were a series of imperial claims. On Cuba, Trump said: “After many, many decades, it’s coming our way. Coming our way.” This comes as the United States imposes a fuel blockade on Cuba, and Trump has already suggested he could launch a military invasion. On Spain, pivoting without pause from the Spanish-American War of 1898 to a live threat against a NATO ally over its refusal to support the Iran war, he said the Spanish are “not very good members of NATO” and added: “They are not behaving nicely. But they will learn soon.” On Venezuela: “A little bit like Venezuela. We did a good job in Venezuela.” On Iran: “I’m prosecuting a war, which we’re winning very easily, by the way.” Four countries and threats or claims of conquest. Said during a one-hour speech.
It was a reminder that Roosevelt’s legacy contains both inspiration and warning. Trump seemed to admire the parts of Roosevelt’s presidency centered on projecting American power, while ignoring the parts devoted to protecting the nation’s land, strengthening its institutions, and serving the public interest. He embraced the empire. He discarded the stewardship.
Three days from now, this country turns 250 years old. I have been thinking about that number for months. A quarter of a millennium. And I keep coming back to what it is supposed to feel like. It is supposed to feel like something. Pride, maybe. Gratitude. A moment to stop and look back at how far we have come and how far we still need to go. I think about the people who built this country, not the men on the currency but the ones who never got credit. The ones who were told they did not belong here and stayed anyway. The ones who fought to make this place match its promises. And I think about what they would feel if they could see the man who will stand on the National Mall on Friday and speak on their behalf. A man who invokes eugenics at a library. Who fantasizes about awarding himself medals he did not earn. Who cannot finish a sentence or tell the truth about an event on his own lawn three weeks ago. Who will represent all of us, every dream this country ever had about itself, in front of the entire world. That is the weight of this moment. Not just what he is doing to the country, but what he is doing to the meaning of it.
And as sad as that realization is, we have to keep the faith that better days are coming. When Democrats take back Congress, and yes, I believe they will, every committee, hearing, and investigation will have his own words and actions as proof. We won’t have to depend on secondhand accounts or anonymous sources. Because his own words will carry him to the consequences of his own actions. The case is building itself every single time he gives a speech or a press conference. And when the reckoning comes, he will have written it himself. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: I remember a study I read earlier this year that said “expert birdwatchers have some fascinating brain changes that may help protect against aging and cognitive decline later in life.” I’m certainly not an expert, but I like to think that every time I stop and stare at a new-to-me bird I am doing something good for the longevity of my brain. Or at least it gives me a boost of happiness in the moment.
Sources:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/donald-trump-wants-to-make-eugenics-great-again-lets-not/
https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/cbs-wont-air-ufc-white-house-151848870.html
I can only imagine the level of fury and frustration of every living President at this daily shredding of everything good and safe they put in place .
The insanity and corruption that has become the norm and shamed America. The solution is in the hands and hearts of that 60%+ of ordinary Americans. Please, for the sake of future generations of this amazing and wonderful planet, get him out !
The Trump family is interested in eugenics yet many Trump supporters have Incestors!