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Tim O’Brien on the decline of The Donald
"He talks in circles that would defy Magellan to make sense of."
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As a weekend bonus for subscribers, we connected with Tim O’Brien, senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion, to get his take on Trump’s undeniable decline and how he thinks his second term is going one year in (spoiler alert: not well).
O’Brien has covered Trump for more than 35 years and is author of the 2005 book, “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.” (Trump responded to O’Brien’s reporting about how he exaggerated his wealth with a ludicrous but on brand $5 billion lawsuit.) We previously interviewed him during the 2024 campaign about Trump’s transformation from a TV huckster to “the centerpiece of an authoritarian movement that wound up rocking the Republican Party and US politics to their cores,” as O’Brien put it.
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Now, O’Brien says he sees a diminished Trump who struggles to do the bare minimum, such as stay awake on camera.
“There’s a notable physical decline. He’s never been a linear speaker, but now he talks in circles that would defy Magellan to make sense of,” he said. “He’s sleeping routinely during cabinet meetings and White House events. He’s simply not the man he was a decade ago, and that was a low benchmark.”
But O’Brien cautions one shouldn’t infer from Trump’s weakened condition that his movement is on its last legs.
“He’s incredibly resilient. He has been that way his whole life, particularly when it looks like things are falling apart,” he said. “And he’s resilient because he’s so devoted to getting his own way at the expense of those around him that he often finds ways to overcome challenging circumstances.”
A transcript of O’Brien’s conversation with Public Notice contributor Thor Benson, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows. If you’d like to read it and aren’t already a paid subscriber, please become one and support our work. Public Notice is entirely funded by readers.
Thor Benson
Trump seems different than he did in his first term. He’s sleepy. He’s unfocused. His cognitive abilities seem diminished. As someone who has been covering him for more than 35 years, what’s your read?
Tim O’Brien...