Hey everyone. I hope you are all doing better than our household, which is battling some sort of stomach virus, which was preceded by pink eye. Being a parent sometimes feels like playing a game of Jumanji that you will never win.
In addition to that, I had this Jackal almost completed on Friday, and then Substack went down. Then, I threw up violently. A lot.
But even still, I had to get this out this weekend. I need to talk to you all about Donald Trump. Guys, I am worried about his brain.
Donald Trump’s brain is very, very bad.
Over the past few weeks, multiple stories have popped up about Donald Trump’s apparent cognitive decline. Salon had a whole interview with a psychologist:
Not enough people are sounding the alarm, that based on his behavior, and in my opinion, Donald Trump is dangerously demented. In fact, we are seeing the opposite among too many in the news media, the political leaders and among the public. There is also this focus on Biden's gaffes or other things that are well within the normal limits of aging. By comparison, Trump appears to be showing gross signs of dementia. This is a tale of two brains. Biden's brain is aging. Trump's brain is dementing.
His brain is dementing. Man, that is serious. Other experts have said that Trump’s “slurred speech and gross, repeated errors” show his cognitive decline is “more apparent than Biden's.” Alarming. When do you think the GOP will start talking about replacing him?
Then there’s the smell. Apparently people keep their distance from Trump in public because of the smell that follows him. You see, Trump regularly evacuates his bowels, because he cannot control himself. It’s that bad.
And, based on my review of multiple videos of Donald Trump’s speeches, I can confidently tell you that he is experiencing a rapid mental decline that should result in him selling Mar-A-Lago. Really, his brain could fall out of his head at any moment things are so bad. And I can make that judgment from right here in my home office, sitting next to a bottle of ginger ale. Amazing, right?
I want it to be obvious that I’m kidding, but a lot of people believe this stuff! I linked to real articles above, and the theory about Trump pooping his pants comes from Michael Cohen, one of Trump’s former attorneys. And it has only ramped up in the past few weeks. Late night talk show hosts are now playing clips of Trump’s gaffes during speeches, including times where he lost his train of thought, began slurring, and mispronounced various words.
Why are they doing that? Well, it’s because Republicans did it to Joe Biden first.
Robert Hur says nothing of consequence.
It took me a while, but we are now at the main topic of this post. The big story this week was Robert Hur’s testimony in front of Congress. If you need a recap, Hur was the Special Counsel tasked with investigating Biden’s handling of classified documents.
Hur ultimately concluded that no charges were warranted in Biden’s case, but his report made headlines a few weeks back because of his characterizations of Biden’s memory which fueled speculation about Biden’s “dementia.” Republicans brought him in front of Congress to try and score a few extra points, but - in true Department of Justice1 fashion - he stuck very closely to his report.
Before we get into the weeds on this, I want to clarify a few things about Hur’s report:
Contrary to multiple media reports (and conservative commentary), Hur did not find that the only reason Biden could not be charged is because he has a poor memory.
Hur found that, overall, there was insufficient evidence to prove that Biden willfully retained the documents, or that he even knew that they held classification status.
Biden was extremely cooperative with the investigation, and even alerted the DOJ to the issue.
This is what I said about Biden’s classified documents case back in January 2023:
All of this is why the DOJ is going to prosecute Trump later this year, and it is also why members of Biden’s transition team (who would be the ones at fault here) are unlikely to see any serious criminal charges. And make no mistake about what I just said: The DOJ is going to prosecute Trump.
If you follow the history of prosecutions for retaining classified documents (I go into it a little bit in that post), you could see Biden’s “exoneration2” coming from a mile away.
Why did Hur say weird stuff about Biden’s memory?
The bigger news came from Hur’s descriptions of Biden’s memory. During the hearing, Democrats repeatedly hit at Hur for it, with Adam Schiff in particular calling Hur out:
Schiff really cuts through everything and gets to the heart of it: Hur is a Republican who conducted a routine investigation into mishandling of classified documents, which always results in no charges being filed. Faced with that, Hur threw in explosive stuff about Biden to give something to the GOP to use.
The worst part about it was that the explosive stuff from Hur’s report didn’t even end up being true. Republicans completely lost it when Hur said Biden could not recall the date of his son’s death. But the transcript shows that Biden did get the date exactly right - May 30th - and during the interview, two other people chimed in with the year. I want to do another YouTube link because they’re fun (and actually get embedded UNLIKE TWEETS THANKS ELON):
Hur also said during the interview that Biden had a “photographic” memory, but that little excerpt never made its way into Hur’s report. It is pretty clear to me that Hur exaggerated Biden’s memory issues, and it resulted in Republicans falling into the same trap they have fallen into for four years: Convincing themselves that Biden has dementia and then being shocked when he performs well in public.
Our candidates for POTUS are just old, not demented.
This brings me to the overall point of this Jackal. We have two very, very old dudes running for President. Is it natural for a person’s brain to slow down once they get to that age? Yes. Does that mean they have dementia? NO.
I cannot stress this enough: Over the past few months left-leaning accounts have amplified Trump’s age as an issue, and are constantly linking to videos of him flubbing his lines or generally making zero sense. I’m sure they will get even more material over the next few months.
I also cannot tell you how often I see the Trump pooping his diaper thing on Twitter. People really believe Trump’s Secret Service agents keep a distance from him because he poops himself all the time. It’s wild! First off, you know it isn’t true because Trump would be bragging about it:
We have heard many things about…I don’t wanna say it, should I say it? My poopies, and let me tell you, no one can do the poopies like I can. They are beautiful poopies. But people wonder if it is, in a way, gross and I can tell you it is so clean. So clean. It is spick and span. And the best part about it is that it’s natural. So many people on the left don’t want to do what’s natural anymore. They want to change your kids’ gender, change their milk, and I will never do that. I will never be changing the milk. Milk can bind you up, many people know this. LACTOSE. Not good under Biden.
Second (and this part is serious), no one close to Trump or Biden has ever sounded an alarm about one of these guys being in mental decline? No one? No aide has gone to the Press? A Biden aide would probably have a job at Fox News within 48 hours. A Trump aide would have a book deal.
I don’t want to make any assumptions about either candidate’s mental acuity, or speculate on Donald Trump’s other diagnosable psychological impairments, but when I look at both of these guys, I do not see two senile residents of the nursing home. I just see two old guys.
Megan McArdle had a tweet-thread recently that detailed her thoughts about Biden’s age, and it stuck with me, mostly for two reasons:
It has personal information in it that is touching and heart-breaking.
It personalizes the age issue a little too much.
McArdle tells a story about her Mom, and how she was doing a crossword puzzle and then roughly a month after that she died. It is so sad and terrifying. But I don’t think we should all try to apply our personal experiences to two millionaires running for President.
McArdle makes a good salary, and is extremely successful. But even then she is miles and miles away from the wealth and income levels of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Why is that important? In America, rich people live a lot longer.
It is one of the tragedies of our giant, disproportionately wealthy country. The average life expectancy of a millionaire is 91. For us regular folks, it clocks in at around 77. When you can extend your life that far - to 91 or in many cases, past it - your body hasn’t begun breaking down the way a regular person’s would.
To summarize: Yes, you may personally know some 75-85 year olds who aren’t in the best condition to run the world’s most powerful country. But you ain’t rich, and neither are they.
But none of that matters, because it really does seem like we are in a doom loop of each Campaign randomly saying that their opponent has dementia, all the way up until November. The greater likelihood that two men who have the most vigorous schedules on the planet and still manage to give speeches in public probably don’t have dementia.
Should-reads:
Every now and then, Matt Yglesias hits it out of the park. This piece on one TikTok should be banned is great.
The so-called, “Don’t Say Gay,” bill in Florida got struck down, but it’s more complicated than that.
If you are a parent, read this (if you are not, then maybe skim it).
I enjoyed this piece a lot, and will probably have my own take in the next few weeks.
I will see you all on Friday, hopefully in better health.
Hur did resign after his assignment was completed, as is customary. So, he testified as a civilian, but DOJ policy directs that even as a former DOJ official he had to stick to their rules regarding testimony.
During the hearing, Hur said that he did not “exonerate” Biden, and spoke up loudly to say that. It was sort of a tell for me, because prosecutors declining to press charges never exonerate anyone. There was obviously evidence of a crime, which is why an investigation was launched in the first place. But Hur’s insistence sort of told me he really didn’t want that to become a soundbite.