The President is not all there
As Donald Trump’s lunch break was coming to an end this afternoon, he quickly fired off a demand at 1:50 PM on Truth Social before heading to the Oval Office for an Executive Order signing. What he posted wasn’t a suggestion or a passing thought, but a demand that anyone running for president or vice president should be “forced” to take a cognitive examination before entering the race. He framed it as necessary and as something that could safeguard our country from incompetence at the highest levels of government. And as proof of how important this is, he pointed to himself, bragging that he had taken the exam not once, but three times, and that he had “aced it” each time. “An achievement,” he wrote, “that even on a single exam, according to the doctors, has rarely been done before.” And in trying to make that case, to reinforce this image of sharpness and control, he revealed more than he meant to. Because in that same post, he wrote that he had taken the test during his “THREE!” terms as president. Donald Trump either forgot how many times he has served as president, two, or he couldn’t understand the irony of what he was saying.
And as much as the people around him continue to enable it and pretend everything is fine, the rest of the world isn’t. When Trump told Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren today that “the world is thanking me” for the Iran war, he wasn’t describing reality. He was once again performing it. Because here is what the world has actually been saying over the past 5 weeks.
Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who is not a traditional Trump critic, who stood beside Trump at the White House just days after the bombing of Iran began and told him that Germany was eager to work with the U.S. on a strategy for Iran, stood in front of a room of students this week and said plainly that “Americans clearly have no strategic plan.” Before adding something far more direct, that “an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.” Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier went even further, calling the entire military campaign a “politically disastrous mistake” and a “violation of international law.” And to be clear, the nation he is referring to is Trump’s America.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron did not bother softening it. “This is not a show,” he said. “We are talking about war and peace and the lives of men and women.” He warned that when a leader says something different every day, it erodes any sense of seriousness, adding that maybe it would be better if Trump simply stopped speaking altogether and let things stabilize.
In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer made clear his frustration, saying he was “fed up” that the people of his country were paying higher energy costs for a war they are not part of and did not start. He made clear that British troops would not be committed without a viable, thought-through plan, and that no such plan exists. “It is not our war,” he said.
And in Italy, even Giorgia Meloni, his closest ideological ally in Europe, the bridge he spent more than a year building, publicly broke with him, calling his attacks on Pope Leo XIV “unacceptable” and reminding the world that religious leaders do not take orders from politicians. Trump responded by saying he was “shocked,” that she was “not helping.”
And we can’t forget what the Pope himself said. After being labeled “weak on crime” by Trump, Pope Leo XIV responded without hesitation: “I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly.” He warned of a coming “tragedy of enormous proportions,” and rebuked those who wage war with “hands full of blood,” saying God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”
This is not the world thanking him. This is the world, one leader at a time, saying out loud what they have been quietly recognizing for months: that the United States cannot be relied on because it no longer has a coherent leader making decisions.
And it’s not just the world beyond our borders that is seeing it for what it is. More Americans are as well. Because even though Trump is hoping the Iran war will fade into the background, we are all still living with the consequences of it. A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed this week found that just 34 percent of Americans approve of him. Two-thirds of his own country does not thank him. His own counterterrorism official, Joe Kent, resigned at the start, saying Iran posed no imminent threat. And still, today, in that same Oval Office, Trump told reporters, “Nobody knows what the talks are, except myself and a couple of other people.” He followed it by admitting, “We have a problem because nobody knows for sure who the leaders are.” The man waging a war does not know who he is waging it against, and he is treating that as if it is normal.
This is why November is not like other Novembers. The cognitive decline being hidden in plain sight, the war the world is begging to end, the Voting Rights Act gutted by a court he shaped, all of it accelerates if Republicans hold both chambers and eliminate the last guardrail standing between this agenda and permanent law. There is no version of the next two years, or the years that follow, that looks better if we do not show up.
I think about legacy a lot lately. I suspect most of us do. Not just whether the decisions we are making right now will hold up when we look back, but whether we are meeting the urgency of this moment in the way it demands. Whether the world our children and grandchildren inherit will be a little more free, a little more fair, a little more just than the one we were handed, or whether we allowed it to be taken while we were still deciding how to respond.
I didn’t come to this work because I had political ambitions. I have none. I came to it because I couldn’t look away. Because I had studied enough history to recognize what I was seeing, and because I understood that the people who stayed quiet while it was happening didn’t do so because they were bad people. They did it because speaking up is costly, and silence feels safer, right up until it isn’t. I made a choice, with my husband, knowing what it could mean for our family, knowing the target it would put on our backs, knowing that my daughters would one day have to process what it meant that their mother spoke out every single night during one of the most dangerous periods in American history. I made that choice because I believe the golden rule is not a sentiment. It is a standard. A world I would want to live in is a world worth fighting for.
And when I look at the men and women who continue to stand behind him each day, I don’t see people who think about any of that. I don’t see legacy builders. I see people who have made a different calculation entirely, that proximity to power is worth whatever it costs later, that the moment is all that matters, that history can be managed or ignored or rewritten. The men legitimizing his cruelty and chaos. The ones nodding along. The ones standing in rooms with him and performing loyalty to the man who does not care about a single one of them. They have decided that surviving this moment is worth whatever it costs them in the next one.
But legacy doesn’t ask for our permission. It doesn’t wait for us to be ready. It accumulates quietly in the choices we make when no one is watching, in whether we told the truth when it was easier to stay quiet, in whether we showed up when showing up was inconvenient or frightening or costly. And one day, not so far from now, our children will look back at this period and ask what we did. Not what we meant to do. Not what we were planning to do when things settled down. What we actually did, while it was happening. That question is the one I carry with me every night when I sit down to write. It is the reason I don’t stop.
When I think about what more we could be doing, I keep coming back to a concept from property law called “adverse possession.” And this isn’t a direct comparison, and it goes much deeper than what I’m about to say, but the core idea still applies. If you stop actively using and defending what is yours, you can lose it, even without ever agreeing to give it up. That’s how rights erode. Not always in one dramatic moment, but slowly, through inaction, through silence, through people assuming they will always be there. And by the time you try to reclaim them, the ground has already shifted, and the fight becomes much harder than it ever needed to be.
Our First Amendment works that way right now. Every time we go quiet, every time we let them take a little more without consequence, we do not get it back easily. Every attack on our rights is a test to measure how much we will tolerate before we stop pushing back. And if we stop pushing back, they will have their answer.
So we keep exercising our right to free speech, and we resist in every other way available to us. Tomorrow is another opportunity to show that we are not done fighting, and that there is power in numbers.
From the organizers: “On May Day, a coalition of over 200 organizations is calling for a national economic day of action. No work. No school. No shopping. Rallies, marches, and non-violent disruptions in cities across the country. Showing up matters. We’ve proved that, and we’ll keep proving that. But showing up alone is not enough to stop people who are breaking every rule. We need to show them we have leverage, not just numbers.” If you are able, join the May Day Strong event. And remember, we are not looking for perfection. Not working is not a realistic option for most people, and that is okay. Don’t carry guilt if you have to go in. Same with spending. If you need to shop, try to spend locally. A small business over a corporation. A neighbor over a conglomerate. We do our best with what we have. Because we are in this for the long haul, and that means thinking about sustainability more than purity. No one wins a marathon by sprinting the first mile.
Even on a day like today, when the evidence of what we are up against felt heavy to carry, the courts are still holding. And that matters more than it might seem. A Delaware judge ruled today that Governor Gavin Newsom’s $787 million defamation lawsuit against Fox News can move forward. Fox tried to have it dismissed. The court said no, finding it reasonably conceivable that the network knowingly aired false statements to protect the president. Newsom responded simply: “Looking forward to discovery.” The machinery of accountability is still moving. And discovery in a case like this could be consequential in ways we cannot yet fully see, and possibly more valuable than any monetary win. Because this was never just about one story or one lie. It is about the stranglehold Trump has on so much of our media, and what it means when that stranglehold finally gets challenged in a courtroom, under oath, with documents, where spin and deflection and propaganda have no place to hide.
Our path back to better days is not going to be an easy one. There are going to be ups and downs. Roadblocks and setbacks. But we are halfway through this administration and we are only getting stronger and smarter in how we resist. Tomorrow is another big day for all of us. And that is why I still have hope for America, and you should too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.
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 am mentally here in the clouds whenever the President of the United States says something that makes my brain hurt.
Sources:
https://newrepublic.com/post/209812/visibly-declining-trump-demands-candidates-prove-mental-wellness
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-cognitive-test/
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5855809-trump-voting-rights-act-ruling-supreme-court/
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5856259-trump-praises-alito-voting-rights/
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/donald-trump-filibuster-agenda/2026/04/30/id/1254804/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/latest-news-live-updates_n_69ef1f0de4b0f3a433cbd69e
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5853795-merz-criticizes-us-iran-strategy/
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5857057-germany-trump-iran-nuclear/
https://time.com/article/2026/04/30/trump-germany-threat-troops-removal-merz-row-iran-war/ h
ttps://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/28/us-humiliated-germany-merz-europe-iran-war-energy-prices-fuel.
html https://time.com/article/2026/04/10/european-leaders-criticize-trump-over-iran-war-starmer-energy-prices/
https://www.trtworld.com/article/a638d6bc29a2
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/15/politics/trump-iran-meloni-pope-nato-allies-imf-analysis
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/iran-war-trump-oil-prices-hegseth-costs-strait-of-hormuz/
After reading your ever-illuminating message, I will haul my 84-year-old self and my 87-year-old husband to downtown Asheville to show the colors. Thank you, Heather, for your steadfast leadership in daunting times.
I am not sleeping tonight, for reasons I won't go into. However, I will gulp some coffee in a few hours so that, sleep or not, I can go to the May Day protest downtown. I might not be at my best, but I will be there. Because it's my sacred civic duty.