Trump is barely holding on

Late this afternoon, after a weekend largely out of public view, President Trump re-emerged aboard Air Force One as it flew back to Washington. He walked into the press cabin with one arm completely limp at his side and the other hovering awkwardly over his hip. His eyes looked heavy, and there was a blank stare across his face. He looked like he had just woken up and was being forced to talk to the press. As he reached up to steady himself on the door frame, he launched into a rehearsed monologue about the economy before the press pool could ask a single question.

“Hello everybody, so, great financial numbers you saw, low inflation, very low inflation, prices are down, way down,” he said, then stopped. His eyes drifted. He stared off blankly, searching for the next thing he’d been told to say. “Ah... gasoline is less than $2 in many places, gallons, which nobody expected to see, but I did.”

He kept going, promised prices would keep falling, credited “drill, baby, drill”, like if he just said it with enough confidence, it would become true. But Trump knows the economy is bad, and he knows the midterms are coming fast. More than anything, he knows there’s a limit to how long you can tell people everything is fine while they’re choosing between rent and groceries.

But the economy talk was just the start. The questions that followed showed us where his head really is. When a reporter asked about Hillary Clinton’s claim that she and her husband are being pulled into the Epstein matter to divert attention from Trump, he didn’t pause to consider the question. He just started repeating himself like a skipping record.

“I have nothing to hide. I’ve been exonerated. I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. They went in hoping that they’d find it and found just the opposite. I’ve been totally exonerated. In fact, Jeffrey Epstein was fighting that I don’t get elected with some author, a sleazebag by the way, and uh, I’ve been totally exonerated.”

Then he pivoted. “No, no, they’re getting pulled in, and that’s their problem. I don’t know, they’re gonna have to see what happens. But I watched her in Munich, and she seriously has Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

When the reporter pressed, “Do you think she should publicly testify?”, he cut her off.

“I’ve been totally exonerated on Epstein, and it’s really interesting because they’ve been pulled in. Think of it: they’ve been pulled in. Clinton and many other Democrats have been pulled in.” And then he stopped talking and took a question from somebody else. That’s his move. He never gives a full answer. He deflects, dodges, and moves on before anyone can get a real answer. And we’re left wondering: is it because his mind can’t keep up anymore? Does he just not care? Or is he just not being told what’s actually happening, so he doesn’t have the full picture to understand or explain?

Then came the question about Kristi Noem. As Trump gripped the side of the plane, he leaned toward the reporter and barked at her to speak up, waving his hand in irritation. When he finally understood the question, he rolled his eyes. He shook his head. And then he said:

“I don’t know about that. I haven’t heard that. Uh, I’ll find out about that, but I have not heard.”

He said he didn’t know, but his body told a different story. Not confusion or surprise. It was annoyance and frustration. He wasn’t blindsided by the allegation. He was irritated that it had reached the press cabin and that his people were sloppy enough to generate headlines. Irritated that something inside his circle had become public.

And here’s the part that matters: even with the growing pressure to fire her for her part in the immigration abuses and now this potentially inappropriate relationship, he won’t remove her from this position. He learned that lesson the hard way in his first term. Firing people creates fractures. It creates former insiders who feel betrayed, which means subpoenas, depositions, and congressional testimony. Authoritarian leaders eventually learn that loyalty is easier to manage than fallout. So instead of cleaning house, they contain the mess, no matter the cost or the amount of destruction their people unleash.

Kristi Noem is not running an ice cream shop. She runs the Department of Homeland Security. The agency overseeing ICE raids. The agency conducting detentions, pulling people off sidewalks, and separating families. The agency wielding immense federal force in American communities. This is just another reminder that Noem wasn’t chosen for competence or steadiness. She was chosen for loyalty, no matter what he demands. But that kind of person, who measures success by proximity to power rather than responsibility to the Constitution, is also a liability. Because someone who prioritizes protecting the leader over protecting the law will always choose the leader when the two collide. And when cornered for her own survival, she will turn on him and never look back.

And Trump just had a moment of clarity. Not about ethics. Not about right and wrong. About risk. It might have irritated him in the moment. But he knows he cannot let on. He has to keep the theater going to protect himself.

But what came next was even more telling. A reporter asked if he would still deliver his State of the Union address if the government remained shut down next week.

Trump: “I think I would. It wouldn’t bother me. I would give it, yes.” Then she followed up: “How are the negotiations going?” And his brain glitched.

“With what? Which one?” he asked. “We have a lot of negotiations.”

She clarified: “No, with the government shutdown.”

“This is a Democrat shutdown,” he said flatly. “This has nothing to do with the Republicans.” This is the President of the United States. The government is in a partial shutdown. DHS workers aren’t getting paid. And he didn’t even know which negotiation she was asking about. He had to be reminded. Then he blamed the other side and moved on. That moment says everything. He’s not concerned at all about the United States, and he’s not even pretending to lead. He’s just surviving the next few minutes until someone gets him off camera.

This is the man running our country. A man who cannot remember which crisis he is supposed to be managing because he simply does not care. A man who is visibly declining, surrounded by people chosen for loyalty instead of competence, and protected by a system that rewards silence over accountability.

And that is what makes this moment so dangerous. We do not have a leader. We have a shell of a person being propped up by people who benefit from the chaos and from their proximity to power. People who are making financial gains on a scale most Americans could never imagine. And the worst part is that every day he stays in power is another day the rest of us, our country, and our planet become more vulnerable.

And it is hard not to see the parallels. We have watched this before. In the final years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, questions quietly circulated about his cognitive health. Staff limited his exposure. Briefings were shortened. Public appearances were tightly managed. Years later, after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, linguistic studies showed signs of decline that had been dismissed at the time as partisan attack. But even then, he was surrounded by institutionalists who believed in protecting the stability of the office itself. What we are witnessing now feels different. This is not caretaking in service of continuity. It is consolidation in service of power. When the figurehead weakens, the machinery behind him does not slow down. It accelerates.

And this pattern is not uniquely American. By the late 1970s, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was visibly deteriorating. His speeches slurred. His appearances were staged. Decision-making shifted quietly to the Politburo while he remained the face of the regime. The image of strength was maintained even as real authority pooled behind closed doors. The system did not weaken as the leader weakened. It hardened. Power became more insulated. Accountability became more distant. Citizens became more expendable.

We have seen what happens when loyalty becomes the only thing that matters. In Nazi Germany, Hitler stopped rewarding competence and started rewarding devotion. Government agencies were built to compete for his approval instead of serving the public. The system became chaotic on purpose. No one knew where authority began or ended, and that confusion protected him. The people closest to him fought for favor instead of doing their jobs well. And while they scrambled for power, ordinary citizens paid the price. Loyalty was everything. Skill and integrity stopped mattering.

This is all too familiar. A weakening leader does not necessarily weaken the system around him. Often, it empowers the people operating in the shadows.

But here is what I keep coming back to: the pressure is working on the elite class that enabled so much of what we are living through today. It might not have reached him yet. Accountability takes time to reach the top. But it is getting closer.

Today, we saw new cracks in that armor. Thomas Pritzker, executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels, was forced out after the latest Epstein file release exposed years of contact with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. He did not fight it or spin it. He said he “exercised terrible judgment” and stepped down. And in Texas, California-based Majestic Realty Co., the owner of a Dallas County warehouse, refused to sell or lease its property to ICE for a mega detention center that would have held up to 9,500 migrants. Community pressure worked, and the company walked away from the deal. And it wasn’t just there. Warehouse owners in Ashland, Virginia, and Oklahoma City also canceled similar agreements with ICE around the same time. City councils in El Paso, Merrillville, Indiana, Durant, Oklahoma, and Kansas City have passed resolutions resisting warehouse detention plans altogether. One by one, local leaders and private companies are choosing not to participate. And it’s important to note that the federal government could still try to seize a number of these using eminent domain, so we have to keep the pressure on.

But these are all still wins. This is what resistance looks like. Not one dramatic moment, but thousands of smaller ones. People refusing to cooperate. Companies choosing not to profit from cruelty. Communities standing together and saying no.

And that is what we have to keep doing. Every dollar we spend is a vote. Every company we support or refuse to support sends a message. Every time we share the truth, we make it harder for them to bury it.

When we see so much bad news, it can feel like it is all too much. But these stories remind us that there is good happening too. That every day more people are waking up and not just acknowledging the corruption happening around them, but actively deciding to take a stand. They need us too tired, too distracted, too hopeless to push back. But we are not. We have made it over a year now, and instead of breaking us, it is strengthening us.

The midterms are coming. If we keep the pressure up, keep supporting each other, keep sharing the truth, and stay engaged, better days will follow. We have seen dark days before in America, and we have survived every single one. We are resilient. We are resourceful. And regardless of what Trump and MAGA say or do, the majority of this country still leads with decency and kindness. This 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.