After twelve days of doing, according to his official schedule, absolutely nothing, Donald Trump assembled a photo-op-slash-cabinet-meeting today. Sort of. It was, as usual, heavily steeped in weird. There was a two-month-old meme poster of Trump's face displayed prominently in the center of the table, for some reason. DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen appeared on a large video monitor to warn that "fake families" are entering the United States.
Let's just say the current leader of the nation seems to be a few marbles short of a bag these days.
Oh, but there’s more. There’s so, so much more.
He blasted deceased Sen. John McCain by name for voting against an Obamacare repeal, and was full of spite for a host of other Republicans. “Jeff Flake is selling real estate, whatever he’s doing.”
On departed Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis: “What has he done for me? How has he done in Afghanistan? Not too good.”
On his own military prowess: "I think I would have been a good general, but who knows?"
On Syria: “Look, we don't want Syria ... we're talking about sand and death. That's what we're talking about. We're not talking about vast wealth. We're talking about sand and death.”
On drones, yes, drones: “I know more about drones than anybody.”
On, um, wheels: “The wheel, the wall, some things never get old.”
On his own visions of power, and on how he spent the holidays:
Oh, Lord, the machine-gun guys weren’t giving him enough attention. He’s going to be sulking about that for weeks.
In any event, it appears that leaving Donald Trump alone with a television set and nothing to do for two weeks was a very, very bad move on the part of his aides. Whatever remnants of coherence he had left are now fluttering about on the lawn somewhere.