The Daily Populous Monday September 29th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by usatoday.com and submitted by Silent-Resort-3076

An unhinged rant about Tylenol. Baffling conspiracies about an escalator. Deluded self-praise. Two-decade-old gripes over losing a construction project bid, droned about on the world stage as if nothing could be more important.

That all came from President Donald Trump in one week, a week that should alarm us and spotlight one simple fact: He is desperate and declining.

The 79-year-old president, on Sept. 22, launched into a wildly rambling and profoundly dishonest diatribe alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the two alleged – falsely, according to medical experts – that Tylenol use during pregnancy causes autism.

Trump is repeating himself and speaking incoherently

Over and over again – more than 10 times – Trump gruffly repeated: “Don’t take Tylenol!”

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He showed the world he can’t read or pronounce the word “acetaminophen.”

And he added, incoherently: “Nothing bad can happen, it can only good happen.”

Trump claimed that people in Cuba “have essentially no autism” because they can’t afford Tylenol. That is both ludicrous and utterly wrong.

Had an older president like Joe Biden babbled like this there would have been immediate calls to airlift him to a sanatorium. For Trump, it was the tip of the iceberg.

An off-the-rails UN speech showed Trump's worsening state

The next day, Sept. 23, Trump was at the United Nations delivering a disjointed and bizarrely long speech that included:

Complaints about a U.N. construction project he lost the bid for in the early 2000s, including this aggrieved-old-man bluster: “I realized that they did not know what they were doing when it came to construction, and that their building concepts were so wrong, and the product that they were proposing to build was so bad and so costly.” Clearly, the No. 1 issue the world is facing.

Criticism of green energy projects and ludicrous claims about climate change being a con, including whatever this word salad is: “We have a border, strong, and we have a shape, and that shape doesn’t just go straight up. That shape is amorphous when it comes to the atmosphere. ... We have very clean air.” It’s not clear at this point that English is Trump’s first language.

A repeat of his preposterous claim that he has ended seven wars, along with another pathetic plea for a Nobel Peace Prize: “Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements.”

And then there was an insult to the nations gathered at the U.N.: “I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.”

Is Trump losing impulse control and growing more paranoid?

By Sept. 24, Trump was in full conspiracy mode, claiming that during his visit to the U.N., he was the victim of “triple sabotage.” It started when the escalator he was on stopped, something the U.N. said was caused by a videographer ahead of Trump accidentally tripping an emergency stop button. The details of this weak, I’m-always-the-victim nonsense aren’t really important, but do take time to read part of the hysterical nonsense the president posted online:

“A REAL DISGRACE took place at the United Nations yesterday ‒ Not one, not two, but three very sinister events! First, the escalator going up to the Main Speaking Floor came to a screeching halt. It stopped on a dime. It’s amazing that Melania and I didn’t fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first. It was only that we were each holding the handrail tightly or, it would have been a disaster. … Then, as I stood before a Television crowd of millions of people all over the World, and important Leaders in the Hall, my teleprompter didn’t work. It was stone cold dark. I immediately thought to myself, ‘Wow, first the escalator event, and now a bad teleprompter. What kind of a place is this?’ I then proceeded to make a Speech without a teleprompter, which kicked in about 15 minutes later. The good news is the Speech has gotten fantastic reviews. Maybe they appreciated the fact that very few people could have done what I did.”

Hearing such blather in public would lead you to slowly walk away from a person, making sure you have a clear path to the exit.

Lawsuits over jokes, targeting political enemies – it's not sane behavior

In and among all this, Trump was: raging about late-night host Jimmy Kimmel returning after a brief suspension and suggesting he – the president – might sue ABC; openly siccing the Department of Justice on his political enemies and using a handpicked U.S. attorney to indict James Comey; and claiming he has “the highest poll numbers I’ve ever had,” which is true only if you live in a pro-Trump fantasy land.

This is madness. Democrats, pundits, corporate leaders, news organizations and anyone with a platform need to have the courage to come out and state clearly what we’re witnessing: Trump is often not making any sense or maintaining a coherent train of thought, he is acting recklessly and not controlling his worst impulses, and he is, transparently, getting worse.

Trump goes back to Tylenol and shows he can't even spell right

To wrap up a week of embarrassment and stupidity, Trump – who seems to suddenly think he’s a physician – returned to Truth Social Sept. 26 and again started ranting about Tylenol and his recommendations for vaccines: “Pregnant Women, DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, DON’T GIVE TYLENOL TO YOUR YOUNG CHILD FOR VIRTUALLY ANY REASON, BREAK UP THE MMR SHOT INTO THREE TOTALLY SEPARATE SHOTS (NOT MIXED!), TAKE CHICKEN P SHOT SEPARATELY, TAKE HEPATITAS B SHOT AT 12 YEARS OLD, OR OLDER, AND, IMPORTANTLY, TAKE VACCINE IN 5 SEPARATE MEDICAL VISITS! President DJT.”

All that crazy, AND he misspelled “hepatitis.”

The man isn’t well, folks. Let’s stop pretending this isn’t a problem.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

gesasage88 on September 29th, 2025 at 12:58 UTC »

I mean, this dude literally ranted about people eating cats and dogs during a presidential debate. For shame, conservatives who voted for him. That was fucking embarrassing to watch, but you voted for him anyways.

Knuth_Koder on September 29th, 2025 at 12:44 UTC »

He literally shared the AI generated Med Bed video that he “spoke” in. Is he so far gone that he doesn’t even know if a video of himself is real or not?

specqq on September 29th, 2025 at 12:43 UTC »

The Republicans have updated the parable of The Emperor’s New Clothes with a new moral lesson more appropriate for these times:

“That kid should have kept his f’ing mouth shut!”