Even insiders are questioning Trump’s health

9 hours ago 2

Commentary

The world is aflame. Can he handle it?

Published July 3, 2025 9:00AM (EDT)

President Donald Trump tours a migrant detention center dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Donald Trump’s latest activities have even some in his administration worried about his physical and mental health. Mind you, no one wants to talk about it openly — though there are a few who will spend the holiday break speculating.

A member of Trump’s team bluntly told me, “I’d lose my job if I talked about this publicly. Or worse.”

The causes for concern, according to a couple of members of Trump’s circle, are his recent lackluster public appearances, his gait, his apparent befuddlement, his propensity to govern via Truth Social postings, his sloppy attire and his lack of engagement at the White House with others.

Trump hasn’t shown up in the Oval Office on Mondays in about a month. His recent golf outings have been at a course in Sterling, Va., instead of at Mar-A-Lago or Bedminster, “and that’s because he doesn’t have to be gone from the White House as long,” I was told. “I don’t think he’s in good physical health.”

His biggest public appearance this week took place the following day after flying to visit a new, massive migrant detention facility in Florida. Trump wasn’t seen on Wednesday, and the Marine who ceremoniously stands outside the Oval Office when the president is there didn’t show up until the afternoon.

On Monday, Trump was scarcely seen. His biggest public appearance this week took place the following day after flying to visit a new, massive migrant detention facility in Florida. Trump wasn’t seen on Wednesday, and the Marine who ceremoniously stands outside the Oval Office when the president is there didn’t show up until the afternoon.

His Tuesday appearance offered us a snapshot of this “new” Donald Trump, according to a Trump confidant. He began with a Truth Social post: “Because of the Violence and Criminality I have seen due to the Open Border Policy of Sleepy Joe Biden, in particular allowing millions of people into our Country who shouldn’t be here, I wanted something representative to show how we fight back, and then, it happened,” the president wrote.

But, wait, there’s more:

“I saw a picture of ALCATRAZ looking so foreboding, and I said, ‘We’re going to look into renovating and rebuilding the famous ALCATRAZ Prison sitting high on the Bay, surrounded by sharks. What a symbol it is, and will be!’ Conceptual work started six months ago, and various prison development firms are looking at doing it with us. Still a little early, but lots of promise!”

Symbol of what? “A great democracy, a great country,” I was told. I personally do not think that a “great democracy” is symbolized by a new or refurbished prison, but that’s just me.

As Trump left the White House for the new detention facility his administration has dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” he told Fox News reporter Peter Doocy what Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt meant last Friday when she said the facility was in the Florida Everglades surrounded by “dangerous animals.”

“With Alligator Alcatraz, is the idea that if some illegal immigrant escapes, they just get eaten by an alligator?” Doocy asked.

Trump jumped right in. “I guess that’s the concept. Snakes are fast but alligators — we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator. Don’t run in a straight line,” Trump said as he waved his hands, “like this.”

Okay, maybe Trump has fallen off a mental cliff. That would explain the “snakes and alligators” comment — and what he said about deporting U.S. citizens as he spoke to reporters after touring the detention center. “We also have a lot of bad people that have been here for a long time…many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here too, if you want to know the truth. So maybe that’ll be the next job.”

If Trump is having cognitive difficulties, do not expect the press to be there to report on much of it. On Wednesday, Paramount settled a nuisance lawsuit to the tune of $16 Million on Tuesday night over the editing of a Kamala Harris interview on “60 Minutes.” The suit was both specious and ridiculous.

The corporation said its payment includes Trump’s legal fees and costs, and that the money, minus the legal fees, will be paid to Trump’s future presidential library. As part of the settlement, Paramount said it had agreed to release written transcripts of future “60 Minutes” interviews with presidential candidates. The company said that the settlement did not include an apology.

Big deal. Trump gets to say he won and, in so doing, he is discouraging major American media corporations from looking too closely at him — and other politicians — even as it is becoming apparent that now is the time we need to do so the most. After all, it isn’t every day a president threatens to arrest a mayoral candidate in New York for absolutely no reason at all.

In the clearest example of how far “Delusional Don” — as a former Biden administration official describes Trump — will take this issue; while the president was touring the detention facility, a reporter asked Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem about taking other actions against the press. “CNN yesterday pushed an app that lets you track where ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents are. [Acting Director] Tom Homan was saying that perhaps CNN should be prosecuted for that as obstruction of law enforcement. Your response?”

Noem replied first. “Yeah, we’re working with the Department of Justice to see if we can prosecute them for that. Because what they’re doing is actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activities, operations, and we’re going to actually go after them and prosecute with the partnership of Pam [Bondi] if we can, because what they are doing we believe is illegal.”

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While that point is definitely debatable, what Trump said next was just weird. Trump decided to chime in and circled back to another bit of news CNN had reported recently: That Trump’s bombing of Iran didn’t completely “obliterate” its targets. “And they may very well be prosecuted also for having given false reports on the attack in Iran,” he said. “They were given totally false reports. It was totally obliterated. And our people have to be celebrated, not come home and say, ‘What do you mean we didn’t hit the target?’ We hit the target quickly. You know, the pilots came home, they said we hit the target quickly. So they may very well be prosecuted for that. What they did there, we think, is totally illegal.”

And, while in Florida, a reporter asked Trump how long detainees would be held there. Trump made the question about himself. “Look, this is my home state, I love it. I love your government. I love all the people around. These are all friends of mine. They know them very well…I feel very comfortable in the state. I’ll spend a lot of time here.”

The time to question Trump’s sanity might just be in our rearview mirror, as is the time to say that we’re in a constitutional crisis. The Constitution has been shredded and Trump is openly cheering its destruction. His sanity looks long gone, and that doesn’t bode well for the country since there’s absolutely no chance the sycophants in his cabinet will invoke the 25th Amendment. The Democrats only wish they had that decent of a chance to get him impeached and convicted.

And while Trump has virtually disappeared this week from public view — outside of visiting a modern concentration camp and posting dozens of statements on social media, the vacuum created by his absence this week could not have come at a worse time. There are still wars raging across the globe, the Middle East remains a tinderbox and Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” has passed the Senate. The stench of that legislation is causing House Republicans to shred themselves to pieces as they try to talk their way out of budget cuts that will blow up the debt and ruin health care for millions of Americans while giving the richest in America a hefty tax break — all before the arbitrary July 4 deadline set by Trump.

As for the president, he’s sticking to the company line he created, even as members of his own party privately question his grasp of reality. “No one is going to say anything against the president, they can’t. We won’t. And that’s the problem,” I was told by the same member of Trump’s team.

That’s not a surprise, and if you’ve been paying any attention, neither is the president’s mental and physical state. I’m sure somewhere in Vegas you can lay down a bet on the possibility of Trump leaving office for any of a variety of reasons prior to the end of his term in about 1300 days.

On Wednesday morning I walked into a Starbucks and ordered a coffee. The barista, who knows me well and what I do for a living, handed me my order and said, “Have a Happy Fourth of July if you can.”

If I can? “What do you mean?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if I appeared either unwell or just in desperate need of physical assistance.

“Well, we live in a crazy world,” the barista said with a smile. “And our president is insane.”

I really don’t know if he is, but there are times he acts like it — and there are times he does not.

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill promises to spend billions on his favorite masked ICE officers, who will act as his private army, and on detention facilities that are de facto concentration camps. That isn’t necessarily the work of someone suffering a mental decline; it could just be the work of a conniving authoritarian.

And that, at the end of the day, is the greatest cause for concern as we celebrate our nation’s birthday: Are we in the grip of a president suffering from dementia, or is he a conniving dictator, or is he both?

The answer may be as ugly as the question. But it’s no way to celebrate a birthday.

By Brian Karem

Brian Karem is the former senior White House correspondent for Playboy. He has covered every presidential administration since Ronald Reagan, sued Donald Trump three times successfully to keep his press pass, spent time in jail to protect a confidential source, covered wars in the Middle East and is the author of seven books. His latest is "Free the Press."