Author Jonathan V. Last, editor of the center-right news site The Bulwark, says President Donald Trump is exhibiting what he calls a “shocking” level of “noticeable mental decline,” citing the president’s remarks during his Monday speech to McDonald’s franchise owners and suppliers as his evidence.

Several times he quotes Trump at length, including here:

“But I want to thank, uh, as you know the famous Sundar and Sergey, Sergey Brin. These are two guys that own and run a place called Google. They called me the following day after I did that McDonald’s little um, skit, because it was it wasn’t a commercial. You got it for nothing. It was a skit and they told me that it and I didn’t know them. I just I said, ‘Who are they?’ They own Google. I said, ‘That’s pretty good. That’s not bad.'”

Trump appeared to be referring to his McDonald’s drive-through event last year, which was a photo-op, not a skit or a commercial. It was deemed “condescending” by an MS NOW opinion writer and “blue-collar drag” by “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert.

READ MORE: ‘Stunning Moment’: Trump Defends MBS While Ignoring CIA’s Khashoggi Murder Assessment

“And uh that it received more hits than anything else in the history of Google and that records, it still stands,” Trump said.

Last asks, did the Google CEO and co-founder actually call Trump that day last year?

“Did they tell him that in just twenty-four hours he’d gotten more ‘hits’ than anything else in the history of Google? More than COVID? More than January 6th? More than Taylor Swift? What is a ‘hit’ on Google,” Last asked.

Last quoted Trump again:

“I’ll bet they use real sugar in your Coca-Cola. You know, they didn’t in the United States. I said to the head of Coca-Cola, you got to go to sugar. They do in other countries. And you know what? They went to sugar. Isn’t that nice? I said, ‘You got to go to sugar.’ Just like I said, why is the Gulf of Mexico called the Gulf of Mexico? I said, ‘We’re changing the name.’ And now it’s the Gulf of America. Has nothing to do with McDonald’s, but maybe it does because it’s very nice cycle.”

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Last noted that Coca-Cola “has not reverted to sugar in the flagship product it sells in the United States.”

And he called Trump’s remarks “nonsense.”

He continued into Trump’s comments about the time he served a few customers at a McDonald’s drive-thru, in what was a staged event.

Last quoted Trump telling the McDonald’s event attendees:

“I’ve been on that line many times. Actually, that line was incredible in the commercial. Right. It wasn’t a commercial. It was about, but, they have the line. The people had no idea. So I made the French fries. The guy was really good. He had a great wrist. He was, nyee, ‘Sir,’ he was going like, ‘Sir.'”

“Yeah. It was not that easy but I got it sort of finally. Not the greatest but I pouring it in asking him all sorts of stupid questions but it was very interesting. Amazing, a little thing is not, it’s a little complex, right?”

By the end, Last declared Trump has “a playlist of grievances and stories in his head,” and “what seems to be happening here is that Trump can’t tell his stories apart. He starts talking about flow restrictions on faucets, which brings him to water. But the word ‘water’ triggers another of his obsessions—water supply issues and deliveries to farms in the American West.”

“And,” Last concluded, Trump’s “brain now mushes these two stories together into a single, unintelligible blob.”

The title of Last’s piece is “Sundown.”

READ MORE: GOP Fractures Reveal Fierce Internal Fight Over Post-Trump Identity

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Despite his own CIA’s investigation that found that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the operation that resulted in the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Donald Trump defended MBS and sharply criticized a reporter asking the crown prince about the killing.

“He’s done a phenomenal job,” President Trump told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce when she asked about the murder.

“You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial,” Trump said of Khashoggi, whose gruesome 2018 killing was investigated by the CIA in a report declassified in February 2021, just after President Joe Biden took office.

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“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him,” Trump said.

“Things happen, but he knew nothing about it,” the president insisted, defending the crown prince who is the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, as The Washington Post reported.

“And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”

CNN White House reporter Alayna Treene described Trump as “furious,” and stated that he “tried to shut down questions” from Bruce “about US intelligence (the CIA assessment was done during Trump’s first term) having concluded that MBS likely ordered the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”

CNN Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins called it “a stunning moment in the Oval Office,” and also noted that “the CIA — under Trump, in his first term — found that the crown prince ordered it.”

The declassified CIA report stated, “We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”

READ MORE: GOP Fractures Reveal Fierce Internal Fight Over Post-Trump Identity

“We base this assessment on the Crown Prince’s control of decisionmaking in the Kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of Muhammad bin Salman’s protective detail in the operation, and the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi,” the report continued.

“Since 2017, the Crown Prince has had absolute control of the Kingdom’s security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince’s authorization.”

In 2018, The Washington Post reported, “The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month, contradicting the Saudi government’s claims that he was not involved in the killing, according to people familiar with the matter.”

READ MORE: ‘Fight Back!’: Trump Demands GOP Keep the House ‘at All Costs’

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Scuttling bipartisan efforts to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year, President Donald Trump on Tuesday declared he will not support any legislation to do so. The withdrawal of the Obamacare subsidies has sent next year’s premiums soaring for millions of Americans, and millions are expected to lose coverage due to the high cost.

In an all-caps post on his Truth Social website, the president announced that the only health care he would support “is sending the money directly back to the people, with nothing going to the big, fat, rich insurance companies.”

“The people will be allowed to negotiate and buy their own, much better, insurance. Power to the people!” he added.

Insurance companies are not known for negotiating premiums, and individual policies historically are far more expensive than group policies, such as those obtained through an employer or via the Obamacare exchanges.

READ MORE: GOP Fractures Reveal Fierce Internal Fight Over Post-Trump Identity

Noting that “senators are preparing to tee up a vote on the issue,” Bloomberg News reported that Trump’s message is now “complicating his party’s efforts to address health care costs.”

During the federal government  shutdown, Democrats highlighted the issue of skyrocketing premiums and negotiated a deal with Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune for a vote to extend the subsidies.

“With millions of Americans facing a potential hike in their premiums and with concerns about affordability front and center among the electorate, Democrats are seizing on the issue,” Bloomberg noted. “Republicans now face the challenging prospect of either bucking the president and extending subsidies or finding another solution to the issue of health-care costs, an issue that has long vexed lawmakers.”

House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries responded, saying: “Republicans created this healthcare crisis, and they continue to try to rip affordable healthcare away from the American people,” according to Bloomberg News’ Erik Wasson. “They are who they are, and the American people know it, and they’re gonna pay the price.”

Politico reported on Tuesday that a “senior White House official said the Trump administration intends to put forward a health bill and left open the possibility of using the fast-track legislative process of reconciliation for passage of health or tariff legislation.”

READ MORE: ‘Fight Back!’: Trump Demands GOP Keep the House ‘at All Costs’

Critics blasted the president’s refusal to support extending subsidies.

“He’s for them, Not for you,” declared U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ).

“Trump’s priority isn’t your health or your costs, it’s his ego,” commented House Ways and Means Committee Democrats. “He’ll watch your health care costs triple just to erase the name Obamacare.”

“Between their trillion dollar cut to Medicaid and their elimination of boosted ACA tax credits, Donald Trump and the GOP will be responsible for millions of Americans losing health coverage and tens of millions more paying much higher costs,” wrote economic policy expert Michael Linden. “Crazy, totally crazy.”

“Senate Democrats who voted to end the shutdown got played. Shocking,” remarked political strategist Andrew Laureti.

“Trump’s made some curious decisions in the past few weeks, but nothing more consequential than deciding that instead of finding some middle ground on Ocare subsidies they’re gonna go in the entire opposite direction and try to jam through their own health care bill,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein noted, responding to the Politico report. “Wild stuff.”

READ MORE: Democrat Warns How Trump Could Engineer a Path to Stay in Power After 2028

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