The Daily Blast: Trumpworld Erupts in Fury as Coverage of His Health Takes Brutal Turn

I'm your host, Greg Sargent.

“Donald Trump just had a physical exam at Walter Reed Medical Center.”

Right after it, he proclaimed himself to be in perfect health. Then Trump's propagandists unleashed an extraordinary attack on journalists for the sin of pointing out that Trump regularly falls asleep at public events.

The moral is clear, Trump world knows that the second he's perceived as weak in any

way, his whole political mistake is at risk of imploding. We think it's not a coincidence that this comes amid new signs that Trump may emerge from the Iran War with less than a world historical victory. Indeed, Trump exploded over this at the news media just now as well. So we're working through all of it with Michael Cohen, who does good work on his sub-stack

truth and consequences, dissecting both Trump's weakness and his authoritarianism. Michael, good to have you on. Greg, great to be here. Thanks for having me. So Trump just tweeted this, quote, "Just finished my six month physical at Walter Reed

Military Medical Center. Everything checked out perfectly. Michael, I don't know how his physical went, but the symptoms are constant. There's the bruising on his hand, which he covers with makeup, the swelling in his legs, the rash on his neck, and the constant falling asleep at official events, right on

the live television, not to mention the constant slurring, the constant incoherence, the constant losing of his train of thought. Trump is obviously deteriorating. What do you think about that? I mean, there's no question about it.

I mean, you've seen a significant deterioration.

“I mean, I think what the problems are Trump is that he's always somebody who is never”

appeared to be the most coherent individual in the world, certainly not that the healthiest person in the world, both either physically or mentally, but it does seem as though he's gotten significantly worse, and as he's gotten worse, the arguments that the White House is using to defend him against legitimate questions about this are even more ridiculous. I mean, I'm sure you saw this, but when he fell asleep in a overlawful event, the White

House tweeted out that he was just blinking when they caught him with his eyes closed. Like, "Oh, read that stupid." I mean, maybe some of people are that stupid in this country, but I think most Americans are not that dumb and they realize the man's longest leap in public events. He absolutely is falling asleep.

We can all see it happening right in front of us. And by the way, the White House rapid response Twitter feed did something really weird on this. It just unleashed a series of tweets that showed imagery of various journalists who appeared in the snapshots to have their eyes closed from actual blinking.

The Twitter feed then ridiculed them saying they must be asleep and that they should be forthcoming about their health. This was directed mostly at CNN journalists like Brianna Keylor, Kevin Littach, Kate Bolduan, and Dana Bash. For instance, one White House tweet said in all caps, Dana Bash falls asleep ahead of

her 50/50 birthday next month. What is going on? Close quote. Now, this is supposed to be mockery, but it's just deranged. Everyone can see that the president is sleeping on camera.

This is propaganda to try to intimidate everyone into not saying, "So what do you make of that component?"

Well, I don't think it's going to work first of all.

I think people can see clearly that he's long asleep. But I think the bigger problem here is this is what happens. You have a president who is such a malignant narcissist as Trump is. Narcissists cannot accept ever being seen as weak. They cannot accept ever being seen as not perfect.

And Trump is the the Uber example of that phenomenon. I mean, this is why I go back to 2020, why he refused to acknowledge he lost. He can't ever seem to present himself as a loser. And you know, he lost that election. And so that just that morphs into everything about him, he has to seem strong, not just

strong, by the way, the strongest person, not just healthy. He's the healthiest person, what he's Trump is that has tried himself with all of these

people who basically their only job is to stroke his ego.

And so they will make these insane compliments, like the ones you mentioned a second

“ago, because that's what Trump cares about.”

And the political fallout, the ridicule that it leads to of Trump is almost a secondary consideration for them, could what matters to these people is keeping the boss happy because they help them keep their jobs. It is a ridiculous situation. It is like the emperor has no clothes come to life.

That's what we're basically seeing here. I want to get into another element of this, which is the degree to which it really resembles

It's also obvious.

Trump and the White House are only drawing more attention to his health and his physical

and mental state by insisting like a bunch of licks, middle, North Korea propagandists that his health is absolutely perfect and a strengthened virility will be unquestioned.

“But they clearly, I think, understand something about Trump's mystique, which is that”

if he's seen as weak or if there are any cracks in the facade of any kind for a non-insignificant swath of his people, his following, suddenly that's a real problem. Where do you think this comes from? It really is authoritarian cult stuff, isn't it? It is.

I mean, by the way, I think for the record, even the North Koreans are like, guys, like take it out of notch. It's a little much, you know, honestly. I mean, I think it is partly what you said. It is the authoritarian kind of mindset of the administration where they have to project

strength all the time. But I think it's also a product of just his particular psychology and not healthy psychology. But again, I think the bigger problem for this White House is that nobody is believing it. I mean, I don't look, maybe the 80 to 90% of magas supporters who continue to be supportive of Trump, maybe they buy it.

And I actually suspect that they will buy whatever Trump tells that at this point. But I really do think that it is opening Trump up to so much ridicule because it is so obvious, we'll live in the authoritarian society, right? We were able to get contrary points of view that point out, in fact, the man was falling asleep.

The man's not the healthyest person in the world. And, you know, he can't outrun that. You can't run authoritarian playbook in a society that isn't fundamentally authoritarian at least not yet. So I just think that it is, it's not effective political strategy.

And to me what it does, it just makes Trump's political problems worse. Because I think you see this discrepancy between what he is talking about people around we're talking about and the reality of what Americans are actually saying.

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That's code in DSR 26 at the DSR network.com/buy. Thank you and enjoy the show. It's interesting that you say that they really understand themselves to be trying an authoritarian strategy and that this can't work in a society that's still, at least to some degree, a free society, right?

Because they very consciously, I think, did try to run this playbook right at the outset

of the second term in a way that they really didn't during the first term as bad as it was.

You had Steven Miller out there, essentially speaking like a totalitarian propaganda. That's very regularly. You had the demonization of enemies and immigrants and the tanks and the streets, the imagery, the trappings of totalitarian dictatorship kind of oozing out of just about every public event.

I really did think they were running this playbook and at this point, it should be pretty damn obvious that it has failed and yet they continue to do it anyway. I find that a little tough to understand, why do you think they do that? Look, I think it's your point I think it's very interesting. I hadn't thought about this before, but you're absolutely right.

A lot of the early things the administration did was that whether it was trying to intimidate law firms that had been, that had been, I guess, had lawyers who had worked on, some of the investigation against Trump, right? They were trying to impose their will and there were a lot of people, it's the honest, in the corporate world, especially, I mean, all the social media folks, Zuckerberg and

Jeff Bezos who sort of played into it and kind of fell for it. But as time has gone on, that effort has largely, I think, failed. This is a sort of vibe shift that we'll talk to about in January, February 25, as long gone.

“As to why they keep doing it, I think it's just because they know that's what Trump wants”

to hear.

I mean, I, I just think this is the bottom line, they, they, these Trump is not, there's

kids about one thing and one thing only, his image, his ego. He wants to, he needs validation constantly. He needs that the people around him tell him how great it is. This is why you had a great article in the New York Times over the weekend, talking, looking at how cabinet members of the cabinet talk about Trump.

And they described him as though he is saving the country.

to hear.

And I think a lot of Republicans have come to this realization that, in order to keep

Trump happy, in order to maintain their own political standing, they need to, for lack better term, smooch Trump's dare air.

“And that's what they're doing on a daily basis.”

But again, I think there is this huge gap between doing that and the reality of what people see. And you know, it's interesting, bring up one point here. You see this in some other Republican primaries, Trump's word remains golden. If Trump says, "Vote against Thomas Masning Boutucky," "Voters in Kentucky," you're going

to vote against the guy who's been behind us for several years, and they're going to pick the person Trump supports. And so it's in the Republican Party, he still has this hold. But outside the Republican Party, that hold is disappeared completely.

I mean, among independents, his numbers could, you know, are just atrocious.

And I think you see this gap between the people who love Trump, which is a very small minority of the country at this point, and those who love Trump, which is a majority of the country. Yeah, and not only that, I think his support is actually slipping among elite Republicans as well, because he's now jammed them into a position where they have to just play along with the authoritarian cult worship in a way that now is exposing them to really serious

“political liabilities in the coming midterm elections, right?”

It looks to me like, "Maga World is cracking up in a new way over this." So for instance, Trump endorsed "Maga Wackjob" Ken Paxton in the Texas GOP primary, an allies of incumbent GOP Senator John Corn in our furious. Now, by the time people listen to this podcast, we'll have a result in that primary. Don't know what it's going to be, maybe Paxton's going to win, it looks like.

But right now, we don't know who's going to win it. Still, the fury among Republicans is really notable, because what's got them ticked is that Cornan was mostly loyal to Trump, yet Trump screwed him anyway. One Texas Republican had this really eye-opening quote to political, was this, quote, "No matter what we do for you, you will still stab us in the back."

Close quote. Michael, this guy is really on to something, no amount of loyalty, no amount of loyalty to Trump is ever enough for him, and it is now at the point where they're just not willing to take it anymore. I mean, if only there was some indication previously over the past 10 years that this

is who Trump really is, I mean, what's crazy is like anyone's surprised by this. So my pet theory as to why Trump came out in support of Paxton is because he wants to be associated with the winner of this runoff election, and that's likely to be Paxton. He has one of these people. The loser like Cornan, even though endorsing Cornan is better for the party, better

for him, actually, because it increases the likelihood of Cornan's nominee, that Republicans can hold the Senate in November. But this is, I think, where his psychology gets in the way of this, but the thing is, I was struck by how many Republican senators were just so frustrated with Trump that he endorsed Paxton.

And again, my response is, how are you surprised by this? You have carried water for this guy over and over and over again, you know, for how many years and when the, you know, what hits the fan, are you really, I've surprised that

“he is going to sell you guys out because that's what he always does.”

And so I've put, but the problem, the Republicans now is that if you, it, it, it, look, a lot of them have already gone past the primary, so you don't have to wear out a primary challenge. But if you're a Republican in a safe seat or even, or more likely, like a seat that has in danger of losing, do you want to risk getting the wrong side of Trump, and maybe

Trump's saying something bad about you online, or possibly, you know, cutting off funding for you from one of his Pax. I mean, no Republican, let's take that risk because no Republican can win without strong Republicans support. And they will lose that public in support or they risk losing it if they come out against

Trump. I mean, I look at Brian Fitzpatrick at Pennsylvania's example, that's he clearly is made to calculation that he's willing to piss off Trump in order to, to, like, sure, it's standing with non- Republican voters. I'm not sure it's going to work because I think Trump's going to go after him, you know,

with both barrels, because he's basically trying to shut down this slush fund that Trump

has created with the Department of Justice. But this is the problem for Republicans. They are competent in an unpopular present, a deeply unpopular president, who is however remains popular within the party and will basically get public in voters to do whatever he asks them to do.

A hundred percent. So I want to switch to another front, because it deepens the portrait here, Trump erupted on truth social on Tuesday afternoon, he said that even if Iran surrenders complete Italy in every way, the media won't admit it. He tweeted this quote, "The failing New York Times, the corrupt, and now irrelevant

CNN and all other members of the fake news media will headline that Iran had a masterful and brilliant victory over the United States of America.

They have gone absolutely crazy."

This is just self-pidious nonsense. I don't think it's a coincidence, though, that it's coming even as Trump's grip on the Republican Party's loosening and even as his physical and mental deterioration is obvious to the world. He's clearly aware that there's a confluence of slippage here, working against him, slipping

health, slipping control of the GOP, his inability to force Iran to do his bidding.

It really feels very clear to me that things have crossed the new threshold of him not

really being able to control events anymore. Well, but I think this is nothing about the narcissist.

“They always, they've had to create their own reality, right, and that's what Trump has constantly”

done. I think Trump truly believes if he says it enough time, this was a, that the war to Rod has been a success and it truly has not been a success, then it becomes a success. And I think he also, certainly, I think among his supporters, there's a belief that if he says enough times, they will actually agree with him.

I think that is proved itself pretty true over the past 10 years or so. I just think the problem again is that Trump is on popular. He's said 37, 38%, he can keep saying these things that clearly are not true and it's just good to look further or road the support that he has. I mean, look, he's lost obviously demographics, he's lost independence at a pretty

large margin. He's so many in public and support others. Somebody's we some polls suggest, even that's slipping. I mean, how much longer can he even maintain that support if he is describing things that just are completely counter to reality?

And I think this is the, again, this is the problem.

“No one around him is going to say to the president, you need to stop saying stuff like this.”

You're hurting yourself, nobody, there's, this is like his first term, there were people

around him, but the guts to at least try to sway to him from bad ideas. No one in his inner circle will do that. And so I just think that this to your point, I think this is going to get worse because there is just no check on what he's doing and saying. And again, the gap between what he's doing and saying and what is the reality, what Americans

are dealing with, whether for the paying at the gas pumps, whether what they're seeing on the news, you can't square the circle on these things, you can't.

“Well, that's another experiment they're running, they're going to try to essentially”

tell us what to think and try to just completely hodowing the entire electorate, but it seems to be failing pretty miserably. Folks, if you enjoyed this, make sure to check out Michael Cohen's sub-stack truth and consequences he gets into this kind of stuff regularly. Michael, nice to have you on.

Thanks so much. Great, my pleasure, great to be here.