Trump’s late-night ramblings: Will Kansas and Missouri pay for it? | Opinion
For his last year in office Joe Biden would have been more appropriately housed in a suburban home for the aged, or at least his own home, rather than The White House.
Now we should bring that same lens to bear on Donald Trump. The equally elderly president entered the second year of his second term in office typing away on social media in the middle of the night, sharing screenshots of world leaders’ text messages in the wake of an erratic attempt to strong-arm NATO ally Denmark into giving up Greenland that threatened to turn into a military confrontation as thousands of European troops poured into the disputed territory.
After a rambling, sometimes incoherent speech/press conference hours later, it is clear Trump, too, would be better housed elsewhere and certainly not the White House.
What’s clear is that a president with a penchant for memory lapses and afternoon naps is far less dangerous than a president who would blithely alter a 75-year-old security treaty with 2 a.m. social media posts.
Trump sees no such problem, stating that “God is very proud of the job I’ve done.” Now chatter on European social media and in the local press there threatens to bring Trump’s incoherence home to Kansas City as Europeans call for a boycott of the FIFA World Cup, and European leaders ponder hundreds of billions of dollars in retaliatory tariffs targeted at industries in Trump-backing red states such as Kansas and Missouri.
In the wake of Trump’s Greenland gambit and an equally controversial decision to subject the chairman of the Federal Reserve to a Justice Department criminal investigation, normally stalwart backers in Congress have been shrinking away. “I think this is the president almost trolling here,” Republican Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall said of the Federal Reserve subpoenas.
Stable presidents don’t troll and they don’t threaten to attack allies. Indeed, talk of Trump’s infirmity is spurring hopeful talk of a 25th Amendment solution and impeachment, as if enough people in Trump’s obsequious Cabinet or the rubber-stamp Congress would dare act against the president
Longtime U.S. Naval War College international relations expert Tom Nichols called the press conference a “completely random 45 minutes of slushy mumbling,” concluding that “If this were any other president, networks would be cutting in and covering (it) with doctors and experts trying to explain what they’re seeing.”
In Trump’s defense, he has described recently taking a test for dementia at Walter Reed and says he aced it, though he didn’t seem to understand the test’s purpose, calling it a “very hard IQ test.” Not shy of suggesting others have such a problem, he suggested a congresswoman who annoys him take the test.
In any case, Trump’s behavior shows he is far from stable. But for anyone who thinks threatening the Federal Reserve chairman with a politically-motivated indictment or destroying the NATO alliance that has served America since World War II might be a step too far for Trump, I’d urge them not to get their hopes up.
I remember the first of several times I thought Trump was done for. In July of the 2016 campaign I had written a column saying that Trump had already won the election because Hillary Clinton was such a joke. I was the only one in the newsroom who had it right.
But then came the October surprise of the crotch-grabbing tapes where Trump was on the record bragging about his involuntary access to the fairer sex. Out came a chorus of smart voices saying that Trump was done. He’d gone too far, especially when running against a woman. I bought it.
I changed my selections in the office election pool. I was wrong like everybody else. I’ve learned my lesson.
Trump may sound truly unhinged complaining that he is after Greenland because he didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize. I think he truly is a few fries short of Big Mac combo, but I won’t bet against him.
David Mastio is a national columnist for The Kansas City Star and McClatchy.
This story was originally published January 21, 2026 at 6:39 AM.
