Cognitive Decline? Trump Is Now Making up Protests in His Support

Donald Trump gave a completely incoherent response to a question about his crackdown on Harvard University and ended up ranting about fictional riots.

During a phone interview with NewsNation Wednesday, Stephen A. Smith, the firebrand sports pundit turned political commentator, asked the president to expand on a comment he’d made about Harvard University, which has seen $2.2 billion in government grants frozen by the current administration.

Smith asked Trump what he would say to those who view his attacks against the Ivy League school as “an attack on academic freedom, rather than a defense of fairness.”

“Well, I say this. We had riots in Harlem, in Harlem, and frankly if you look at what’s gone on—and people from Harlem went up and they protested, Stephen, and they protested very strongly against Harvard. They happened to be on my side,” Trump said.

“You know I got a very high Black vote. You know that? Very, very high Black vote. It was a very great compliment to me,” Trump continued.

The president appeared confused about the subject of the question, ranting about Harlem instead of Harvard and inventing a fictional riot in support of his war on higher education.

Trump’s stumped response is particularly disturbing because, crucially, Smith repeated the word “Harvard” three times in asking his question, and was responding directly to something Trump had just mentioned. Halfway through the question, Trump seemed to realize his mistake, but then felt it necessary to comment on the support of Black voters, which was at that point entirely off topic.

There have been concerns over Trump’s cognitive decline since he first started to deliver weaving, nonsensical stump speeches on the presidential campaign trail. Now his divorce from reality manifests mostly in his disastrous economic policy, as the president is more or less kept away from making lengthy addresses.

During an interview on ABC News Tuesday, Trump appeared to suggest that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man wrongfully deported to El Salvador, literally had “MS-13” tattooed on his hand. In reality, Trump had seen an image with these letters and numbers digitally added as a visual aid to the tattoos the government claimed proved his gang affiliation.

More than 80 professors at Harvard have pledged 10 percent of their salaries to help pay for the school’s legal battle against the Trump administration. In addition to the $2.2. billion in grants, and the cancellation of a $60 million contract, the White House also plans to pull $1 billion in federal funding for Harvard’s health research, which could potentially devastate Boston’s hospitals.

Trump administration officials are stockpiling basic supplies in anticipation of skyrocketing prices from the president’s ill-advised tariffs.

Rolling Stone reports that at least three administration officials, including one Trump aide, are buying toilet paper, food items, and other household supplies in bulk. They also told the publication that they know other conservatives working in politics, both inside and outside of the White House, who are doing the same.

When asked why they were hoarding, the Trump aide said, “Because it would be stupid not to!” They added that they and their partner were “stashing cash” in their Washington, D.C.-area home but that they still support Trump’s tariffs, saying there will be “short-term pain” before long-term “prosperity.”

It’s clear that Republicans in power are fearful of the consequences of Trump’s tariffs. Some GOP senators have expressed their concerns publicly, and even allied with Democrats on a Wednesday vote to condemn Trump’s tariffs, only to be stymied when Vice President JD Vance cast his tie-breaking vote to shoot the effort down.

Meanwhile, the economic shakeup continues to generate bad news, whether it’s the U.S. gross domestic product shrinking for the first quarter in three years, domestic car manufacturers saying they’ll lose billions of dollars, or unemployment numbers rising. Trump continues to try and brush it all aside, blaming President Biden and claiming that a “boom” is right around the corner. The administration’s chief tariffs architect, Peter Navarro, even said the economy is great—aside from the tariffs.

Many Republicans are worried that the ensuing trade wars and price hikes from the tariffs will hurt the economy, making these basic supplies more expensive. But because they’re also scared of Trump and don’t want his or his supporters’ vengeance, they’ll offer phony public support or, at the very least, make feeble, low-stakes acts of opposition. All the while, they’ll hoard toilet paper or engage in shady Wall Street investments for their own personal benefit.

The sweeping car and auto part tariffs that President Trump claims will revitalize the domestic industry will cost one of its biggest companies millions of dollars. 

General Motors CEO Mary Barra estimated that Trump’s tariffs will cost the company between $4 and $5 million of revenue this year, in a letter sent to shareholders Thursday. The company has lowered its profit goal in response. This comes as Trump actually retreated from the much more aggressive tariffs he had originally planned for the industry. 

Even in the face of financial loss, Barra believes the company will keep the prices the same for consumers. But there’s no guarantee. 

“We believe … pricing is going to stay at about the same level as it is,” she told CNN’s Erin Burnett in a Thursday interview. “Pricing changes in our industry at least monthly, and sometimes more frequently. We’re going to respond to the market.”

Lower earnings aren’t just bad for Barra and her shareholders, they’re bad for the hundreds of thousands of working-class Americans (many of whom voted for Trump) who depend on GM for their livelihoods. Trump’s reckless tariffs and trade wars have set automakers and autoworkers on edge rather than reassured them.  

Multiple Trumpworld officials involved in the Defense Department’s Signalgate scandal are leaving their posts.

National security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, are exiting the administration, CBS News’s Jennifer Jacobs reported Thursday. The pair are expected to leave by the end of the day.

But the roles aren’t likely to stay open for long. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is reportedly in talks to replace Waltz, according to Politico. Witkoff has been busy the last several months attempting to work out a peace deal with Hamas in Gaza and end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Other contenders include White House deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, National Security Council Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka, and the special envoy for special missions Richard Grenell. The last of those options served for a handful of months as Trump’s acting director of national intelligence during his first term, and was in talks for other top intelligence positions in December as Trump drew up his Cabinet.

Waltz has been the epicenter of several embarrassing episodes for the Trump administration in the last couple of months. In March, Waltz committed an egregious national security flub by accidentally inviting a journalist from The Atlantic to a Cabinet group chat on Signal that discussed sensitive, real-time war details about bombing Yemen.

That news brought the supposed chief intelligence expert’s myriad other misgivings to light. In the wake of the Signal scandal, an account sharing Waltz’s name had seemingly left his Venmo profile public. In doing so, the intelligence official disclosed the names of hundreds of his personal and professional associates, including government officials and lobbyists.

The list also included several major media personalities, such as Bret Baier and Brian Kilmeade of Fox News, Brianna Keilar and Kristen Holmes of CNN, a cable news producer, local news journalists, a national security reporter, documentarians, and “noted conspiracy theorist Ivan Raiklin,” reported Wired.

Waltz was also one of several top Trump administration officials caught with their personal data—such as account passwords, cell phone numbers, and email addresses—listed online, reported the German newspaper Der Spiegel.

And, as it turns out, Waltz “regularly” used Signal to discuss work, according to Politico. He reportedly had at least 20 group chats to discuss issues in Ukraine, China, Gaza, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

Behind closed doors, Donald Trump was reportedly furious with Waltz’s pattern of errors and was “suspicious” that Waltz’s contact list apparently included journalists critical of the administration.

“The president was pissed that Waltz could be so stupid,” one anonymous source familiar with the situation told Politico, in the aftermath of the Signal scandal.

Still, the Trump administration publicly reiterated its confidence in its intelligence pick, describing Waltz as a “good man” who had learned his lesson.

Trump has reportedly been sensitive to the idea of ousting Waltz, believing that doing so could be interpreted as a bend to public pressure. One source familiar with the situation at the National Security Council told CBS News that the president believes enough time has passed that the administration can reasonably reframe Waltz’s and Wong’s departures as part of a “reorganization.”

Waltz’s removal also marks another embarrassing loss for Republicans, who traded the former Florida representative to the executive branch at a cost to their slim majority in the House.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong in his second term as president.

On a NewsNation town hall with Chris Cuomo, Stephen A. Smith, and Bill O’Reilly, Trump, who phoned in to the event, was asked by an audience member, Lee Shapiro, what he thought his biggest mistake was in the first 100 days of his new term.

“I’ll tell you, that’s the toughest question I can have because I don’t really believe I’ve made any mistakes,” Trump said to laughter from the audience, which was divided between Democrats, Republicans, and independents.

“I think Lee is reassured,” joked O’Reilly, a former Fox News host.

Trump appears to be in deep denial. His administration is facing more than 200 lawsuits over his immigration policies, his ill-advised tariffs, his revenge against law firms, his attempts to shut down government agencies, and many more actions. On top of that, his secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has been embroiled in scandals over leaks and discussing battle plans in private group chats.

The president has shown signs of cognitive decline over the past year. If Trump was unwilling to hear criticism before, now he’s unable to acknowledge the consequences of his own actions. With Congress and much of the Supreme Court failing to hold him accountable, it appears that Americans are stuck with a president who causes problems for the country and doesn’t take responsibility.