Donald Trump’s alarming 24 hours with late evening rants, Oval Office ‘snoozing’ and plots to invade a rustic

It’s hardly surprising that Donald Trump looked quite snoozy during an event in the Oval Office last night – because he’s been up all night doing increasingly untethered posts on Truth Social. Here’s a recap of what’s been going on

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OK, so for once Donald Trump’s bizarre behaviour is under threat of being overshadowed by events closer to home, so let’s keep this to the point.

Trump has spent quite a lot of the last 24 hours posting increasingly untethered AI slop on Truth Social attacking his enemies, both foreign and domestic. Meanwhile, he’s mulling making Venezuela the 51st state, moaning that Cuba hasn’t fallen over yet and falling asleep at his desk. And tomorrow he’s off to Beijing for meetings with China’s President Xi Jinping, so it’s good that he’s in a nice, calm, level-headed frame of mind.

Here are the bits you absolutely need to know.

1. Trump keeps posting AI slop through the night

Trump posted dozens of times on Truth Social all through the night last night. As I type this, he’s still posting – mainly AI slop insulting and attacking his opponents at home and abroad.

One recent post shows a presumably American drone unleashing hellfire on speedboats flying the Iranian flag. “BYE BYE, “fast boats””, the caption above it reads. Another shows an American warship firing a red laser beam at an Iranian drone, with the caption – and I wish I was making this up – “Lasers: Bing, Bing, GONE!!!” On the domestic side, earlier today Trump posted an cartoony AI image of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker eating through a massive buffet of delicious-looking junk food. “JB is too busy to keep Chicago safe!”. It’s hard to say for sure, but this has all the hallmarks of someone putting an AI image generator on Trump’s phone, and letting him spend all day prompting. No good can come of this.

2. He had a full meltdown over a story about his “reflecting pool” refurb

In the middle of his late-night posting spree was a 400 word rant about the New York Times. The Grey Lady had earlier in the day revealed that the cost of the “refurbishment” of the reflecting pool next to the Lincoln Memorial is already spiralling. For those not keeping up, there was already a 3-year, $300m plan to properly gut and refurbish the beloved monument – fixing the pump that’s supposed to keep it clean and replacing the slightly grotty granite that’s been there for getting on for a century. Trump took one look at that and said, “Nah, I’m going to get one of my swimming pool guys to have a go.” He announced two weeks ago that it would take his guy a week to accomplish the bodge job of coating it with blue swimming pool coating, which would cost about a million and a half dollars. The NYT reported last night that had already spiralled to $13.1 million, which included a pretty hefty 20% profit margin for the company Trump handed a no-bid contract to do the work.

Trump, obviously objected to the Times’ story, and in amongst the inevitable jabs at Obama and Biden, he claimed “many patriots” had asked him to try and fix the pool. He went on to say it was going to cost “5 or 6 million dollars”, more than three times what he said it was going to cost two weeks ago. He also said it was now going to take two weeks – and given it’s barely half done, it absolutely is not.

3. Trump seemed pretty dozy in the Oval last night

Donald Trump appeared close to losing consciousness several times during an Oval Office event about America’s “fertility crisis” yesterday evening.

Even Dr Oz saying things like “One in three Americans is under-babied”, or RFK Jr claiming, without presenting any evidence: “In 1970, men had twice the sperm count as our teenagers do today” didn’t keep the President alert.

This from RFK Jr is, without doubt, a weird thing to say. But it’s particularly weird because he’s kind of said it before, but in a different way. The kind of way that indicates he’s looked at some research but not really understood it. In October, he claimed: “Today the average teenager in this country has 50% of the sperm count, 50% of the testosterone of a 65 year old man.” This was obviously nonsense for a number of reasons – mainly because young men do not have lower sperm counts than older men. That’s just not a thing that happens. Secondly, there is no research – either in 1970 or today – on the sperm counts of teenage boys. Good luck getting funding for that one.

Bobby also banged on about the “fertility rate” in the US, a subject he demonstrably does not understand.

“We just found out we’ve dropped to 1.57%,” he said nonsensically, because fertility isn’t expressed as a percentage, it’s a number. The average number of children born to women over their lifetime.

He went on to suggest the decline in fertility rates in the US over the last 100 years was some kind of creeping medical crisis, rather than mostly being due to things like the decline in teen pregnancies, the invention and widespread availability of reliable contraception and women being allowed to have jobs.

4. Trump ‘pushes’ DoJ to pursue reporters

The news over the weekend that the Department of Justice has issued subpoenas to Wall Street Journal reporters who have been covering the war in Iran. But last night CNN was reporting that Trump personally pushed the DoJ to issue said subpoenas in order to flush out their sources. And he reportedly delivered the message to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who let’s not forget really, really wants to get the job permanently, with a post-it stuck to it with “TREASON” written in Sharpie. If this had been any other President, etc, etc.

5. Trump apparently wants to make Venezuela the 51st state

Trump has frequently mused about annexing other sovereign countries and turning them into the 51st state – most notably Canada and Greenland. Slightly more alarmingly, he’s now openly floating the idea of annexing a country he has already invaded – Venezuela. “Good things are happening to Venezuela lately!” He wrote on Truth Social in March. “I wonder what this magic is all about? STATEHOOD, #51, ANYONE?” And apparently the idea is still occupying his thoughts. Fox News’ John Roberts claimed yesterday that Trump had told him he was now “seriously considering a move to make Venezuela the 51st state.”

6. Trump is having another “annual” physical

The White House announced Trump was set to have his annual physical checkup at Walter Reed military hospital later this month. He had his first “annual physical” last April, a few months after he took office. Then in October, the White House revealed he’d had another “routine yearly checkup” at Walter Reed. Trump later described it as a “semiannual physical”. There is no greater casualty of the Trump administration than the English language.

7. Trump “has a plan” for Iran…but probably won’t do it until next week

Trump had already postponed a visit to China last month, pushing it back in the diary to give him a chance to get Iran sorted out. And now the revised date has rolled around and Iran remains stubbornly un-sorted out. Trump said in the Oval last night that he still “has a plan” for ridding the world of a nuclear Iran. People around him tell various media outlets stateside that this is likely to involve a return to bombing the heck out of it. But all of that is almost certainly on hold until he gets back from China – who, let us remember, are pretty much on Iran’s side.