Trump Insists He’s “Brilliant” in Interview That Goes Off the Rails

Donald Trump is continuing to pretend that being a blathering fool is impressive.

During an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier, which aired in full Monday evening, Trump went on several unwieldy tangents, skirting around answering simple softball questions that the interviewer offered on a silver platter.

At one point, in the middle of a thought, Trump diverted his answer to congratulate himself on just how obtuse he was being.

“And you know, let’s go back over there, because I’m the weaver,” Trump said, abruptly switching topics. “I’m the great weaver, you know that right? OK? I’m the great weaver.”

“Trust me,” Baier replied. “I get it.” The Fox News host put one hand up as if to physically stop the president from getting off track, but Trump chugged along like a runaway train.

“Somebody said, ‘Oh, he rambles,’ no, no. Only the fake news says that,” Trump said. “To weave you have to be brilliant; to ramble you don’t have to be brilliant at all.”

A smiling Baier interjected again, gently corralling the ranting president back toward coherence. “I’ll just get back in the weave there. I have to get you back in,” he urged.

“But I like the weave because it covers a lot of territory, and it covers it much more quickly,” Trump continued, before segueing back into a point about Israel.

Over the course of the chaotic interview, Trump tactlessly sidestepped a question about whether he was actually capable of lowering inflation, and went way off course when responding to a softball question about uniting the country. Trump also took the opportunity to throw Vice President JD Vance so far under the bus you could hear the bones crunch.

Donald Trump fumed over the state of New York’s fraud judgment against him in a Truth Social post Tuesday morning.

The president used to call New York his home, but in his post, he said it “is the most corrupt State in the Union.”

“We need great Judges and Politicians to help fix New York, and to stop the kind of Lawfare that was launched against me, from falsely valuing Mar-a-Lago at $18 Million Dollars, when it is worth, perhaps, 100 times that amount (The corrupt judge was replaced by another judge, only to be immediately put back on the case when the Democrat political leaders found out that a change of judges was made. It has become a great embarrassment for the New York Judicial System!),” Trump’s post read.

Last year, a New York state court ruled that Trump had to pay $454 million in fines for fraudulently inflating the value of his properties (including Mar-a-Lago). He had to scramble to come up with a reduced $175 million bond for his appeal, benefiting from the help of a shady surety company. But Ol’ Donny Trump might wriggle out of this jam again, as an appeals court seemed skeptical of the massive sentence against him in oral arguments in September. Regardless of that court’s judgment, Trump isn’t likely to stop crowing about it online, as the judgment against him now stands at over $500 million.

Donald Trump has struck a new, incredibly dismissive tone on Ukraine and its war against Russia—right before Vice President JD Vance’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. 

“They may make a deal, they may not make a deal, they may be Russian some day, or they may not be Russian someday, but we’re gonna have all this money in there … I want it back,” President Trump told Fox News’s Bret Baier Monday evening. 

“I told them that I want the equivalent, like $500 billion worth of rare earth,” he continued, tripling down on his demand for his newest fascination. “And they’ve essentially agreed to do that. So at least we don’t feel stupid. Otherwise we’re stupid. I said to [Ukraine], ‘We have to get something, we can’t continue to pay this money.’”  

This is exactly what Vladimir Putin—whose military occupies nearly a fifth of Ukraine at this point—wants to hear. This is a stark contrast from former President Biden’s approach of providing aid to Ukraine (and not expecting rare earths in return) on the grounds that the country was being illegally invaded. 

Trump’s version of “ending the war” might just be giving the Kremlin everything it wants. Are they really “peace talks” if one side is expected to surrender? 

A federal judge has indefinitely extended the deadline for federal workers to accept Donald Trump’s buyout offer.

The president had posed a “fork in the road” ultimatum for federal employees via the Office of Personnel Management late last month: Either opt for a “deferred resignation” that would pay them through September, or face a possible furlough.

The temporary restraining order on the program put in place by U.S. District Judge George O’Toole will remain in place while the court weighs the legality of the buyout, reported CNN Monday.

Eligible federal workers had originally faced a midnight deadline on Thursday to accept or deny Trump’s offer. O’Toole imposed an initial restraining order, just hours before the offer expired, delaying the deadline to late Monday.

“The pressure that comes from that deadline where people have to make their choice about their livelihood,” argued Elena Goldstein, an attorney for the plaintiffs: “Irreparable harm will continue. They will be asking what they actually accepted. OPM is making it up as they go along.”

Unions for federal employees were behind the lawsuit, calling OPM’s “Fork Directive” a “sweeping and stunningly arbitrary action to solicit blanket resignations of federal workers,” according to court filings.

Attorneys for the Justice Department counterclaimed that Trump had “campaigned on reducing the federal workforce” and that the mass dismissal program should come as no surprise to Washington’s civil servants. The administration “knew they’d come to a disappointment to a lot of the workforce … so this would be an off-ramp for those employees,” said Justice Department attorney Eric Hamilton, per NBC News.

Vice President JD Vance is exactly as irrelevant to Donald Trump as he is to everyone else.

In an interview Sunday with Fox News’s Bret Baier, Trump threw Vance under the bus when asked about the future for the former never-Trump Republican who sold out his principles, his dignity, and even his own family, to boost Trump’s shot at unchecked power. His reward? Nothing, it seems.

“Do you view Vice President JD Vance as your successor, the Republican nominee in 2028?” Baier asked.

“No,” Trump replied. “But he’s very capable!

“I mean I don’t think that it—you know, I think we have a lot of very capable people,” Trump continued. “So far, I think he’s doing a fantastic job. It’s too early, we’re just starting.”

“But by the time you get to the midterms, he’s going to be looking for an endorsement,” Baier pressed.

“Yeah, a lot of people have said this has been the greatest opening, almost three weeks, in the history of the presidency,” Trump said, weaving into a rant about how amazing he is at being president.

It’s possible that Trump tried to sidestep answering because he already has a candidate in mind for 2028, and—spoiler alert—it’s not Vance. Although he isn’t allowed to run again, Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of doing so, both on the campaign trail and since winning the presidency. It doesn’t seem as if Trump cares very much about what is legal and what’s not.

In lieu of actually governing, Vance seems to be filling his empty hours posting on X about a range of random topics, including rubber-stamping the rehiring of a racist to DOGE, undermining the checks and balances that underpin our democracy, and complaining about dog cross-breeding.