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‘Sundown’: Trump Shows ‘Shocking’ Noticeable Mental Decline Journalist Says

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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.”

READ MORE: Trump Blasted After Drawing Line in the Sand in High-Stakes Health Care Clash

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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‘He Was the Only One’: Trump Mocked for Declaring Iran’s Moves ‘Shocked’ Him

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March 16, 2026

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President Donald Trump is facing criticism and mockery after admitting he was “shocked” that Iran fought back against Operation Epic Fury.

“Trump just admitted publicly that his administration underestimated the Iranian response to his attack,” The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin reported.

During a meeting of the board governing the Kennedy Center, Trump said, “look what happened. In the last two weeks, they weren’t supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East. Those missiles were set to go after them. So they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait. Nobody expected that. We were shocked.”

Focusing on Trump’s “shocked” remark, some critics blasted the president, once again, for what many have previously said is a Commander-in-Chief who was unprepared to go to war against Iran.

The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser called Trump’s comments a “Remarkable admission.”

READ MORE: ‘Lazy and Unstrategic’: GOP Senator Slams ‘Republican on Republican Violence’

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Justin Amash declared, “We are governed by complete morons.”

Podcaster Clint Russell noted, “Just FYI, this is the EXACT reason our generals have consistently advised against a war with Iran. Even Charlie Kirk had laid this all out on his show a couple years ago. Iran was no threat to America but they were fully capable of destroying the global economy by striking oil facilities and transit throughout the region.”

Robert Manning, a Distinguished Fellow in Global Foresight at the nonpartisan Stimson Center, wrote: “If so, he was the only one surprised. Strategic planners have war games this for 40 years. Hard to believe JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] didn’t advise Trump this was likely.”

“I’m pretty confident every war plan US has ever done in last 30 years gaming out this conflict was based on expectation that Iran could in fact [and] would in fact do this,” noted The Nation’s Jeet Heer.

“Every institution built to prevent exactly this outcome existed, was bypassed, and we are now watching the president express shock at conclusions that were already written in the classified assessments he didn’t read,” observed Christine Villaverde, the chairwoman of Anchoring Democracy.

READ MORE: Kristi Noem at Center of Push for DOJ Perjury Probe: Report

 

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‘Lazy and Unstrategic’: GOP Senator Slams ‘Republican on Republican Violence’

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10 hours ago

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March 16, 2026

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A prominent Republican senator is denouncing his own party while lamenting the lack of an official presidential endorsement in the highly contentious Texas Republican Senate runoff election.

Agreeing that it is a mistake for President Donald Trump to withhold his endorsement of either Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton or U.S. Senator John Cornyn, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) warned, “I think the more time we spend millions of dollars with Republican-on-Republican violence, Democrats are in the marketing department, loving the idea of a competitive runoff.”

“I get tired of Republicans being lazy and unstrategic,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju, appearing to suggest there are other ways for one of the candidates to pull ahead.

“People on my side of the aisle, and people at the far right of the political spectrum, are trying to swing for the fences, and they’re not gonna succeed,” he warned.

READ MORE: Kristi Noem at Center of Push for DOJ Perjury Probe: Report

A runoff election between Cornyn and Paxton will take place on May 26, and the president has yet to endorse either contender.

Reports suggest a Cornyn endorsement is more likely, although Paxton has been a reliable MAGA supporter. Trump has even suggested that whichever candidate does not get his backing should quit the race entirely, clearing the way for the presumptive nominee to battle the Democratic nominee, James Talarico.

“The Republican Primary Race for the United States Senate in the Great State of Texas,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, on March 4, “cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer. IT MUST STOP NOW! We have an easy to beat, Radical Left Opponent, and we have to TOTALLY FOCUS on putting him away, quickly and decisively!”

He vowed to make his endorsement “soon,” but has yet to do so.

Each passing day gives Talarico more time to campaign and build his war chest as the two GOP contenders spend their time and money battling each other.

READ MORE: Gas Prices Near $4 in These Five States

 

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Gas Prices Near $4 in These Five States

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13 hours ago

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March 16, 2026

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Gas prices are continuing to substantially increase, with five states now hovering near $4 a gallon and several others seeing sharp increases as President Donald Trump’s war in Iran enters its 17th day.

“Big gas price hikes just now starting to happen in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Missouri today, which will likely push the national average to $3.75-$3.80 by mid-week,” reports Patrick De Haan, the head of Petroleum Analysis at GasBuddy.

But, he also notes that Michigan and the Chicago area are already seeing $3.99 per gallon as of Monday. Indiana drivers are seeing $3.89, and Ohio and Kentucky are seeing $3.79 per gallon.

De Haan directly attributes the increases to the summer gasoline changeover and the ongoing Iran situation.

“The national average is up 80.0 cents from a month ago and is 66.1 cents per gallon higher than a year ago,” WANE reports, citing GasBuddy’s data.

Drivers should not expect to see prices come down significantly anytime soon.

“Until we see a meaningful resumption of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, upward pressure on fuel prices is likely to persist,” De Haan said. “At the same time, seasonal forces are beginning to intensify as several regions complete the transition to summer gasoline, creating a double headwind that could continue driving pump prices higher in the weeks ahead.”

READ MORE: Kristi Noem at Center of Push for DOJ Perjury Probe: Report

 

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