“Is This Real?”: Trump Sends Third-Grade Reading-Level Letter to Erdoğan

Donald Trump has said or done something certifiably insane nearly every day of his presidency. And not like, “This guy’s a little kooky”-level insane, but full-on “Mr. President, put down the stapler and unhand the president of Finland”-level insane. But last week, apparently seeking to prove to the world that we ain’t seen nothing yet re: the depths of his mental instability, he wrote and reportedly proudly distributed the following letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for all the world to see:

Each line of the letter contains an obvious Trumpism—talk of “deals,” reference to “tough guys”—but packaged together, in all its batshit glory, in an official letter to another world leader, it seemed unbelievable even for a guy who most people agree should’ve been placed under conservatorship some time ago. The immediate reaction from the media was “HOW IS THIS THING REAL,” and yet, according to the White House, it totally is! That means that the president of the United States sat down and either penned—or more likely dictated—a letter in which he told the president of Turkey, “Don’t be a tough guy,” “Don’t be a fool,” history “will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don’t happen,” and then, in what might be the absolute craziest way to end a piece of correspondence that references “slaughtering thousands of people,” signed off with: “I will call you later.”

It‘s the kind of thing that even Donald Trump Jr. will have to admit is a sign someone needs to place an emergency phone call to Dr. Bornstein, and that we assume has caused Ivanka to tell aides that “Daddy is resting and isn’t to be disturbed.”

Incredibly, the Erdoğan letter wasn’t the only example of Trump’s mental decline on Wednesday afternoon, which also saw the president lash out at Democrats like a machete-wielding madman on the subway and claim that he personally defeated ISIS: