What did Donald Trump do today?

He got very upset that people are noticing he's having trouble staying awake.

Trump (or someone posting as him) was up bright and early this morning, but in a foul mood. The cause was a New York Times article from yesterday about the visible decline of the 79-year-old's health and ability to make it through even his relaxed idea of a full day's work. 

 

The article, written by Katie Rogers, discussed Trump's frequent struggles to stay awake, even in situations where he knows he is the center of attention. It noted that the average time of Trump's earliest public appearances in a given day has crept later and later in the day, to an average of 12:08 p.m., up from 10:31 a.m. in 2017. Even in the early days of his first term, when he was a comparatively youthful 71, Trump often built what his aides called "executive time" into his schedule—unstructured time he'd spent in the residence, watching TV or napping. (In the current term, Trump's detailed schedule is kept secret from the public entirely.)

Rogers' piece also addressed some of the unanswered questions about Trump's physical health, such as why he was given an MRI at his most recent physical. Trump claims not to know the reason, or even what part of his body was being imaged, something that is almost impossible to believe since MRIs are never given as a matter of routine. But it is at least possible that it's related to the monthly intravenous he is apparently receiving. Some drugs administered in that way and on that schedule, such as the Alzheimer's drug Leqembi, require MRI monitoring.

Much of Trump's 288-word rant was a rehash of his usual up-is-down claims about his success: prices that are going up are actually going down, the economy that literally 1% of Americans are optimistic about is great, he's personally ended nonexistent "wars," and so forth. But he also returned to some favorite and equally plausible brags about his health, among them that he "aced" a "COMPREHENSIVE COGNITIVE TEST" that was in reality a dementia screening exam that asks the patient to identify pictures of zoo animals and do single-digit arithmetic problems in their head.

Trump, who recently snapped "Quiet, piggy!" at a female reporter who was asking about why he was stonewalling on his promise to release the government's files on Jeffrey Epstein, also called the NYT's Katie Rogers "ugly inside and out." He declared the paper itself, not for the first time, to be an "ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE." 

The next week won't do much to burnish Trump's image as an energetic go-getter. He escaped the White House yesterday to start a six-day vacation, and has exactly one item—a late afternoon phone call—on his schedule between now and next Monday.

Why does this matter?

• A president who was actually mentally competent and physically healthy enough to do the job wouldn't be so worried about this kind of thing.