The big Donald Trump news from yesterday that everyone missed
There were multiple major developments surrounding Donald Trump on Monday. He was granted a partial temporary reprieve in his New York civil fraud bond, and we’ll see if he’s able to do anything with it. He also found out that his New York criminal trial will start as expected on April 15th, which is obviously bad news for him. But something else also happened involving Trump yesterday that was arguably a bigger story than either of these things.
After Trump held a series of increasingly senile campaign rally speeches that were generating more and more headlines about how deep into dementia he is, his handlers leaked to the media that they were pulling the plug on his rallies, using budgetary concerns as an excuse. But it was plainly obvious that they were trying to get him out of public view, because at this point his senile speeches do more political harm to him than any questions about why he’s disappeared. Then Monday happened.
Trump held an impromptu “press conference” at one of his lower profile New York properties, in an apparent attempt at claiming victory in his New York civil fraud case. But Trump only ended up coming off as senile as ever. He got confused about who the Governor of New York is. He got lost over the word “Tuesday.” He announced that “You can’t have an election in the middle of a political season.”
Trump ended up not getting headlines about his senility on Monday, but only because his senile attempt at a “press conference” took place in the midst of so much other news surrounding him. But if he’d done this on any other day, every headline this morning would have been about his cognitive collapse.
Trump presumably held this press conference without the blessing of whoever within his camp pulled him off the campaign trail to begin with. All Trump ended up doing was unwittingly proving his own handlers right: he’s no longer able to appear in public without humiliating himself and generating headlines about his dementia.
So what happens the next time Donald Trump insists on being allowed to speak publicly, or demands that a rally be scheduled? Every time Trump speaks in public from now on, he’ll just be inviting yet another round of headlines about how senile he is. And yet as his life continues to get ripped apart by the legal system, he’ll want to put himself out there more than ever. Might as well get your popcorn ready now.
