Folks, this is serious. Sorry to interrupt while you are paying gas prices about $1 higher than a month ago or paying more for most of what you bought 14 months ago because of tariffs. And, of course, you might be worried that the cost of goods will jump again when those high fuel costs – the cost of the diesel most truckers and farmers use has risen higher than gasoline – are factored into new shipments.
But filling Big Oil’s coffers aside, we have a serious problem with U.S. President Donald Trump’s grasp of reality. The guy controlling the most powerful armed forces on the planet – which he just willy-nilly loaned to Israeli warmongers – seems to have slipped a gear or two in his assessment of the world.
We are used to his lies. The Washington Post fact checker documented 30,573 “false or misleading claims as president” during his first term. Trump’s buddy Jeff Bezos’ purge of The Post cost the paper its fact checker [Glenn Kessler] early last year.
I find no evidence that Kessler’s position has been filled. But Trump’s egregious disregard for the truth caused PolitiFact to declare 2025 “The Year of the Lies.”
Still, there are the Trump lies we are used to and a lie of such magnitude that we must question the liar’s cognitive quotient.
On March 16, trying to justify his commitment of U.S. firepower to Israel’s attack on Iran, Trump told reporters:
“I’ve spoken to a certain president — who I like, actually. A past president, former president, he said: ‘I wish I did it. I wish I did.’ But they didn’t do it. I’m doing it. Yeah?”
Pressed by the press, Trump said it wasn’t former President George W. Bush but declined to comment when asked if it were former President Bill Clinton.
He elaborated: “I don’t want to say because a member of a party, a member of a party, they have Trump derangement syndrome, but it’s somebody that happens to like me, and I like that person, who’s a smart person, but that person said, ‘I wish I did it.’”
That Trump said he liked the former president [of the other party?] should have triggered alarms. He has expressed nothing but disdain and contempt for his living predecessors.
Trump ruled out Bush, and a Bush aide confirmed to NBC News: “They haven’t been in touch.” The NBC account continued by pointing out “an aide to Bill Clinton told NBC News that whoever Trump was referring to was not Clinton.
An aide to Barack Obama said ‘no recent conversations’ have taken place, and a source familiar with the matter said the former president Trump was referring to was not Joe Biden.”
In hitter’s terms, Trump is 0-4 on former presidents who praised him.
This leaves the only former president whom Trump likes and considers smart: himself. Was Trump looking into a mirror and talking to himself?
This is not a joke. This shows a serious disconnect with reality – and Trump made that claim twice that day. Nor is this the typical Trump lie such as he offered before and after his mystery conversation.
When it was determined a U.S. Tomahawk missile destroyed an Iranian girls schools and killed at least 175 children, Trump floated the notion that the missile could have come from elsewhere. The only other countries possessing Tomahawks are Japan, Australia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom – none of which was attacking Iran.
That is a typical Trump lie. Throw some verbiage to the wind, forget about it and move on to the next one – say, promising a list of the countries joining your Iran war at the first of the week and then calling these never-existent non-supporters “cowards” before the week ended.
After following Israel into an expanding Mideast war, Trump tried to enlist the support of the NATO allies he has spent more than a decade insulting. He found no takers – at the time he promised a list and for the rest of the week.
Trump just makes up stuff – any fallacy that supports his ever-shifting stances. We know that.
But to claim that a former president endorsed his Iranian action – when no one did – is another, lower level of mythologizing. And he said that twice with deliberate intent.
Trump and his apologists try to claim his critics are “deranged” to point out his malfeasance. Does Trump really believe he talked to a former president?
One might argue the derangement lies elsewhere.
What consequences can this country expect when it is being led by someone with so little grasp of reality?
