President Donald Trump's cognitive decline was on full display this week, longtime Beltway reporter John Heilemann told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace on "Deadline: White House" — and it's obvious when you compare his demeanor to a few years ago.

"You know, look, they asked him the other day on the airplane, on Air Force One, why he took an MRI, and he said he didn't know," said Heilemann. "If getting the camera-person-TV thing right is acing it, not knowing why you took an MRI is flunking it. I'm not sure what to make of any of those things, but it's totally clear and has been for some time."

"This is not the first time I've said this, but if you look over the course of the last 10 years, we've had Donald Trump in our lives, you can measure the decline in his mental acuity," said Heilemann. "You can measure it by looking at the interviews he gave in 2015 and 2016, looking at them in 2020. Look at them now. His vocabulary has reduced dramatically. The complexity of the words that he uses. He rarely uses multisyllabic words anymore. He says the same words over and over and over again. This is — you know, these are people who do linguistic analysis and go and look at those things. If you go back and look at Trump's interviews from 2016, he was never a genius, but he could conduct or have a real conversation with the Wall Street Journal editorial board about trade policy that didn't seem the way he sounds."

"I think that the weird combination of his hubris, his arrogance, his insecurity and need to boast about things that he's always been called, you know, people have always put him down for his intelligence, so he has to boast about it," Heilemann continued. "Now, combined with the various diminishments that are taking place with him. And again, I'm not diagnosing the guy, I'm just saying his complexity of thought has been dramatically reduced in the last decade. In a way, it is for, frankly, a lot of people who get to be his age."

President Donald Trump's cognitive decline was on full display this week, longtime Beltway reporter John Heilemann told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace on "Deadline: White House" — and it's obvious when you compare his demeanor to a few years ago.

"You know, look, they asked him the other day on the airplane, on Air Force One, why he took an MRI, and he said he didn't know," said Heilemann. "If getting the camera-person-TV thing right is acing it, not knowing why you took an MRI is flunking it. I'm not sure what to make of any of those things, but it's totally clear and has been for some time."

"This is not the first time I've said this, but if you look over the course of the last 10 years, we've had Donald Trump in our lives, you can measure the decline in his mental acuity," said Heilemann. "You can measure it by looking at the interviews he gave in 2015 and 2016, looking at them in 2020. Look at them now. His vocabulary has reduced dramatically. The complexity of the words that he uses. He rarely uses multisyllabic words anymore. He says the same words over and over and over again. This is — you know, these are people who do linguistic analysis and go and look at those things. If you go back and look at Trump's interviews from 2016, he was never a genius, but he could conduct or have a real conversation with the Wall Street Journal editorial board about trade policy that didn't seem the way he sounds."

"I think that the weird combination of his hubris, his arrogance, his insecurity and need to boast about things that he's always been called, you know, people have always put him down for his intelligence, so he has to boast about it," Heilemann continued. "Now, combined with the various diminishments that are taking place with him. And again, I'm not diagnosing the guy, I'm just saying his complexity of thought has been dramatically reduced in the last decade. In a way, it is for, frankly, a lot of people who get to be his age."

President Donald Trump was under fire from critics on Wednesday who accused him of killing tourism in the United States with a new policy that would require visitors to undergo social media inspections.

Under the new rule, international travelers would have to provide their social media history over the last five years, The Guardian reported.....

"If you want to ban foreign tourism, just say so. Don't demand that tourists prove they've never criticized the Dear Leader like some creepy Maoist cult. Oh, and good luck with the 2026 World Cup, or ever getting the Olympics or another international event here again," Brookings Institute fellow Jessica Riedl wrote on X.

"The Trump administration plans to require all foreign tourists to provide their social media histories from the last five years to enter the country. Yes, I said TOURISTS — not immigrants. This is insane. It will DECIMATE the U.S. tourism industry," Jon Cooper, majority leader of Suffolk County legislature and former Long Island campaign chair for Barack Obama, wrote on X.

"Yeah this is the death knell for tourism. It doesn’t matter if it passes or not. It scares people. And thats enough. People don't want to be scared on vacation," Gabrielle Ferry, founder of The Thurman Perry Foundation, wrote on X.

The U.S. government threatened sanctions against the International Criminal Court unless the body vowed not to prosecute President Donald Trump.

Officials in the Trump administration confirmed to Reuters that the International Criminal Court had been told not to investigate the U.S. president.

"Washington may penalize more ICC officials and could sanction the court itself," Reuters reported, noting that the Trump administration was also demanding investigations into U.S. troops' actions in Afghanistan and into Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza be dropped.

The U.S. did not participate in the 2002 Rome Statute establishing the ICC as a court of last resort capable of prosecuting heads of state.

"There is growing concern ... that in 2029 the ICC will turn its attention to the president, to the vice president, to the secretary of war and others, and pursue prosecutions against them," a Trump official told Reuters.

Eight years later, the Republican’s private racism has become his public racism. The New York Times reported on Trump’s Tuesday night speech in Pennsylvania:

Soon after, a member of the crowd yelled out a crude term that Mr. Trump used during his first administration to disparage Haiti and some nations in Africa. The president laughed.

‘I didn’t say ‘s–⁠–⁠–⁠hole,’ you did!’ Mr. Trump replied with a grin. He then recounted his use of the term at a White House meeting in 2018 to describe countries that he was balking at accepting immigrants from.

....Describing the 2018 White House meeting, the president told rally attendees, “We want to be honest, because our country was going to hell, and we had a meeting and I say, ‘Why is it we only take people from s–⁠–⁠–⁠hole countries, right? Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden — just a few — let us have a few from Denmark. Do you mind sending us a few people? Send us some nice people, do you mind?”

Trump: "I've also announced a permanent pause on 3rd world migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia, and many other countries. I didn't say shit hole, you did. I said that to the senators, the Democrats, so they came in and they said this is totally off the record .... "

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-12-10T01:40:26.476Z

The message wasn’t exactly subtle: Trump is fine with immigration, so long as it’s white people coming to American soil......

His remarks came a week after he referred to Somali immigrants as “garbage.” A New York Times report described it “an outburst that captured the raw nativism that has animated his approach to immigration,” adding that the president’s condemnation “was shocking in its unapologetic bigotry.”

A week later, the brazenness of Trump’s racism was apparent once more.

After years of denials, President Donald Trump confirmed Tuesday night that he used the phrase “shithole countries” in 2018 to insult several countries with majority non-White populations, including Haiti, El Salvador and Somalia.

His turnabout came during an event in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania — his first stop on a speaking tour nominally centered on his economic policies — when Trump mentioned pausing migration from 19 countries the administration has deemed high-risk. The group, he said, included “hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia, and many other countries.”.....

“So they came in. And they said, ‘This is totally off the record, nothing mentioned here, we want to be honest,’ because our country was going to hell. And we had a meeting,” Trump recounted Tuesday. “And I say, Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right? Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden — just a few, let us have a few … But we always take people from Somalia. Places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”

Trump’s remarks at the Pennsylvania event seemed to be a nonchalant admission that he had in fact used such language during his first term to disparage Haiti, El Salvador and several countries in Africa. The Post had also reported that Trump — who was meeting with senators to discuss a bipartisan immigration deal — singled out Haiti and told the lawmakers he did not want any more immigrants from that Caribbean nation......

Trump also griped to his Cabinet that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), who fled civil war in Somalia and later immigrated to the United States, complained about her adopted country too much.

“You know, our country is at a tipping point. … We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” he said. “Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”

Trump’s comments came amid reports that his administration is ramping up immigration enforcement efforts targeting undocumented Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Trump recently threatened to end temporary protected status for Somali immigrants in Minnesota and, without evidence, accused “Somali gangs” of terrorizing people there.

But when it comes to Trump’s media enemies list, The New York Times continues to hold the top slot — as evidenced by his decision in October to sue the newspaper for $15 billion, claiming that it defamed him and tried to ruin his reputation.

This week, the president took this ongoing offensive in an unsettling direction. As Time magazine summarized:

Donald Trump will be the oldest U.S. President in history by the time he leaves office if he serves out his full second term, and while he nicknamed his predecessor Joe Biden as ‘Sleepy’ and amplified questions about his declining fitness for office, Trump now says that reports about his own aging are ‘seditious, perhaps even treasonous.’

That might sound like a wild exaggeration, but it’s entirely accurate.

On Tuesday night, after delivering an economic speech in which the president encouraged Americans to settle for less, Trump published a hysterical 487-word rant to his social media platform that was disturbing, even for him......

But I’m also struck by the broader context: Two weeks ago, the Times published a report on the Republican’s effort to “project round-the-clock energy, virility and physical stamina,” which is starting to give way to an awkward new reality. From the article:

Mr. Trump, 79, is the oldest person to be elected to the presidency, and he is aging. … Nearly a year into his second term, Americans see Mr. Trump less than they used to, according to a New York Times analysis of his schedule. Mr. Trump has fewer public events on his schedule and is traveling domestically much less than he did by this point during his first year in office, in 2017, although he is taking more foreign trips. He also keeps a shorter public schedule than he used to. Most of his public appearances fall between noon and 5 p.m., on average.

In the days that followed, the president appeared to fall asleep in a variety of official settings.

This is, to put it lightly, an unusually sensitive subject for Trump, and given his online harangue, it seems the Times touched a nerve.

But as part of her announcement, the Republican lawyer also let the public know about her next gig. From Habba’s written statement:

My fight will now stretch across the country. As we wait for further review of the court’s ruling, I will continue to serve the Department of Justice as the Senior Advisor to the Attorney General for U.S. Attorneys.

Around the same time, Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed in a statement that Habba will be “continuing with the Justice Department” as Bondi’s senior advisor on federal prosecutors nationwide.

It’s possible that this is a meaningless consolation prize, and that Habba will have few meaningful responsibilities beyond her frequent appearances in conservative media......

But as part of her announcement, the Republican lawyer also let the public know about her next gig. From Habba’s written statement:

My fight will now stretch across the country. As we wait for further review of the court’s ruling, I will continue to serve the Department of Justice as the Senior Advisor to the Attorney General for U.S. Attorneys.

Around the same time, Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed in a statement that Habba will be “continuing with the Justice Department” as Bondi’s senior advisor on federal prosecutors nationwide.

It’s possible that this is a meaningless consolation prize, and that Habba will have few meaningful responsibilities beyond her frequent appearances in conservative media.

A year later, amid rising prices and widespread public discontent over his many economic failures, the president has some choices. He could repeat the line he delivered to Time magazine during his transition and tell the public that it’s “very hard” to lower consumer costs, despite his unrealistic assurances to the contrary. He could also ask for Americans’ patience and argue that conditions will improve in the coming months and years.

But Trump prefers a different course: He’s decided that gaslighting is the way to go.

Trump: "Prices are all coming down"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-12-09T17:51:23.322Z

....This rhetoric dovetailed with Trump’s recent claims that Americans’ concerns about affordability are a “Democrat [sic] hoax,” a “con job by the Democrats” and a “Democrat [sic] scam.”

That the president is the nation’s most prolific liar is nothing new, but there’s a qualitative difference between regular ol’ lying and self-defeating lying. Often, when Trump peddles nonsense, the American mainstream isn’t immediately sure what to believe, and it falls to media fact-checkers to offer the public guidance on what’s true and what’s not.

But when the president tells Americans that prices on “everything” are “coming down,” no one needs a fact-checker; they just need a wallet.

The more the Republican plays make-believe, the more he appears hopelessly out of touch. If he and his team want to know why Trump’s public support has fallen to embarrassing depths, they can start by coming to terms with his failure on affordability. The public knows he’s failing, so brazenly lying about Americans’ own life experiences does more harm than good.