10 unhinged Donald Trump moments as he makes candid admissions about his well being
All the most unhinged things that happened in Trumpworld in the last 24 hours – including MORE plans to demolish the White House, and an alarming statement about the only thing that will stop him
JD Vance is the most terminally online Vice President the United States has ever known. And while his public response to the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis may seem callous, heartless and reckless, he’s actually doing what you’re supposed to do when you’re at the centre of an online controversy – steering into the wave. Not showing a morsel of remorse. Doubling down and escalating your own arguments – even if that means saying things that are manifestly untrue, or that attack the character of a dead woman you know nothing about.
But before we get going with today’s roundup, I want to note that his reaction also lines up with an important – but little talked about – character of the MAGA movement. And particularly the terminally online corner of MAGA for which Vance is a figurehead. The hatred of women, or at least of strong women. Vance stood up at the Press Room podium and painted a picture of Renee Good as an uppity woman, getting above her station and interfering where she wasn’t wanted. She must have been influenced and brainwashed by a shadowy leftist network, because women like her are clearly unable to form her own opinions, or decide to rise up in protest – if that’s what she was doing – of her own accord. It ties beautifully in with the rise of “get back to the kitchen” rhetoric online since the 2024 election, the branding of any woman who dares speak her mind or stand up for herself as a “Karen”, the DOGE-adjacent argument that “email jobs” (for which you can probably read jobs non-domestic, healthcare or teaching jobs that are predominantly held by women) are fake jobs and a waste of money. Orwellian propaganda, his response certainly was – but it was also profoundly sexist.
Meanwhile in Trumpworld
- Trump says the only thing that can stop him is his own morality
- Diddy asked for a pardon. Trump said no
- He made candid admissions about his health
- He’s not done demolishing the White House
- JD Vance smears a shooting victim and blames her for her own death
- Congress gives Trump a slapdown over Venezuela
- Trump gives stern warning against shooting protesters…in Iran
Here’s what you need to know
1. Trump says the only thing that can stop him is his ‘own morality’
There’s a lot in the New York Times’ sprawling two-hour interview with Trump that’s worth flagging today, but perhaps the single most alarming moment was when he said, out loud, “we don’t need international law.”
Asked if there were any limits to his power on the world’s stage, anything that could stop him, he said: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
2. It’s ‘psychologically important’ to him to own Greenland
During the interview Trump was asked if he was serious about invading Greenland, or whether he’d be happy with dealing with what he perceives as Denmark’s failure to police the surrounding area by Europe and NATO upping their game. This was, by all accounts, the suggestion Keir Starmer was tasked with presenting to the US President in a ring-round last night.
But on Wednesday, when the interview took place, Trump did not sound at all like he was up for that idea.
And asked if he would pick owning Greenland or preserving NATO, Trump said: “It may be a choice.”
“Ownership is very important,” Trump told the four reporters dispatched by the Times to grill the President. “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do with, you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”
3. He’s not on Ozempic
Trump told the Times he’s not on obesity drugs, but acknowledged that he “probably should” be. He also told them he had never had a heart attack and isn’t on any blood thinners other than Aspirin – which, as we learned last week, he takes way more than the recommended dose of it.
4. Without irony, Trump warns Iran not to shoot protesters
In a second interview released last night, this time with Fox News’ (who else?) Sean Hannity, Trump warned Iran not to shoot unarmed protesters standing up to its regime.
“I have put Iran on notice that if they start shooting people, these are completely unarmed people…I’ve told them that if they do anything to these people we’re going to hit them very hard.
5. JD Vance monsters dead woman, blaming her for her own death
JD Vance monstered a the victim of the Minnesota ICE shooting in a jaw-dropping, evidence-free rant, branding her “brainwashed” and “radicalised” and blaming her for her own death.
Claiming he wanted to “turn down the temperature” after the tragic shooting of Renee Good, he accused the 37-year-old mum-of-three of deliberately trying to run over the shooter, and that he acted in self-defence. He said her death was a “tragedy of her own making”.
He went on to claim, without evidence, that she was part of a broader radical left network, intent on preventing ICE from doing their work.
He claimed she was a “victim of left-wing ideology”, had been “brainwashed” and “radicalised.” Local sources have suggested she had dropped off her child at school and was on her way home, and in a statement her ex-husband said she had no history of activism.
Challenged on how he had reached his conclusion when video evidence suggests the opposite, he said: “There is one angle where if you squint, you can maybe tell yourself that it is not clear what happened. If you look at all angles of the video, it is very clear that her vehicle went right for the guy and she collided with him.”
6. Then announces a new White House official to root out “fraud”
JD Vance’s reason for calling an unexpected press conference yesterday was clearly to undermine the victim of the Minneapolis shooting.
But he at least pretended for a while there was another reason to be there. He announced the creation of a new Deputy Attorney General role, based in the White House, with a mandate to root out “fraud”. You’ll be shocked to hear the states singled out as the opening targets for this national shakedown are California and Ohio, both of which have significant Somali American communities.
7. Congress votes through slapdown for Venezuela invasion
Senators pushed through a resolution yesterday that would limit Trump’s ability to launch more attacks on Venezuela.
It’s extremely unlikely to become a law, but it’s a significant gesture that showed unease among some Republicans over the surprise raid – and Trump’s expanding ambitions.
Democrats and five Republicans voted to advance the war powers resolution on a 52-47 vote – throwing Trump into a fury, saying on social media that the Republicans who backed it “should never be elected to office again” and that the vote “greatly hampers American Self Defense and National Security.”.
8. Oh, and JD Vance says the War Powers Act is a “fake law”
Asked about the vote in the Briefing Room, Vance said: “If you look at the people who actually voted, every single one of them has supported the administration’s plan.
“Second of all, as the President I believe has already said, every President, democrat or republican, believes the War Powers Act is fundamentally a “fake and unconstitutional law”. It’s not going to change anything about how we conduct foreign policy over the next couple of weeks, the next couple of months. And that’ll continue to be the way we approach things.”
In fairness, the rules set out in the War Powers act have never really been followed.
Passed in 1973 in the aftermath of the Vietnam War – and over the veto of Republican President Richard Nixon – it has never succeeded in directly forcing a president to halt military action.
Congress declares war while the president serves as commander in chief, according to the Constitution. But lawmakers have not formally declared war since World War II, granting presidents broad latitude to act unilaterally. The law requires presidents to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying forces and to end military action within 60 to 90 days absent authorisation – limits that presidents of both parties have routinely stretched.
Still, it’s not a fake law. It’s a real law.
9. Diddy asked Trump for a pardon, but he’s not considering it
Elsewhere in what we warned you was a sprawling, wide-ranging interview with the New York Times, Trump talked pardons – specifically confirming (we think for the first time) that disgraced music mogul and amateur rapper Sean Combs had written to him seeking one.
Trump said he had no intention of granting a pardon to him. Nor to former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, disgraced former senator Robert Menendez, or disgraced crypto nerd Sam Bankman-Fried. He said he hadn’t been asked for a pardon for George Floyd’s murderer Derek Chauvin.
If the Times reporters asked him anything about Ghislaine Maxwell, they haven’t published it yet. Which is a bit weird.
10 Trump isn’t done destroying the White House
Remember in August, when Trump was seen walking on the roof of the White House (and performing a very unfortunate gesture)? Well, it turns out he wasn’t just out for a stroll. “I was looking at doing office space,” he told the New York Times.
Not satisfied with causing widespread horror by tearing down the East Wing of the White House to create a vanity ballroom, Trump has his sights on the perhaps even more iconic West Wing – building a second level on top of the building, to create what he called an “upper West Wing.”
The area, he said, could house additional office space, or could be a space for “First Ladies’ offices for future First Ladies”.
Or maybe as a separate apartment for Melania to live in, I dunno.
He also, apparently, quite fancies ripping up the brick paths in nearby Lafayette Park and replacing them with (sigh) granite. At least it isn’t marble.
