Ramble on
By 
The full transcript of Trump’s interview this weekend with Politico has to be read to be believed.
Trump is a combination of deeply incoherent, totally mendacious — there lots of simply made up statistics; did you know that every time the War Department sinks a boat off Venezuela it saves the lives of 25,000 Americans? — and just plain bonkers.
The other striking feature is the toady-like groveling of the interviewer, who sounds like Waylon Smithers interviewing Montgomery Burns, if both were at the center of the MAGA cinematic universe.
A typical sample:
Trump: And we’re gonna hit ’em on land very soon, too.
Burns: … almost all the illicit fent … fentanyl in the United States is actually produced in Mexico using precursor chemicals from China, according to the DEA. And Venezuela isn’t a significant source or transit country for fentanyl. It barely appears on the DEA’s trafficking assessments.
Trump: Yeah, well, they do send lots of drugs. Those boats come in largely from Venezuela so I would say that’s a significant … and you can see the drugs. You can see these bags all over the boat, I mean, just bags and bags and bags.
Burns: So if it’s about drugs, would you consider …
Trump: But … but let me tell you what they do do. They send really, really bad people into our country, and they’ve done it better than anybody else. They emptied their prisons into our country, and these prisoners are seriously tough. They entered … uh, all of their prisons have been emptied into the United States of America. Murderers, 11,888 murderers …
Burns: So is this about making sure Maduro sees justice …
Trump: Well, wait a minute.
Burns: … then?
Trump: Eleven thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight murderers were entered into our country, and stupid Joe took all those people. And now we’re getting them out. We’re finding ’em. We found a lot of ’em and we’re getting them out or we’re putting them in jail. Some are so dangerous and so bad that we don’t want to put them back to their country ’cause they’ll find a way to get back in. But these are stone-cold murderers. But every time we knock out a boat, we save 25,000 American lives.
Burns: So would you consider doing something similar wi … with Mexico and Colombia that are even more responsible for fentanyl trafficking into the U.S.?
Trump: Yeah, I would. Sure. I would.
Burns: You pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández and let him out of prison even though he was convicted in a massive international drug trafficking scheme. How is that zero tolerance on drug trafficking if …
Trump: Well, I don’t know him. And I know very little about him other than people said it was like, uh, an Obama/Biden type setup, where he was set up. He was the president of the country. The country, uh, deals in drugs, like probably you could say that about every country, and because he was the president, they gave him like 45 years in prison. And there are many people fighting for Honduras, very good people that I know. And they think he was treated horribly, and they asked me to do it, and I said I’ll do it.
Burns: Do you think that could send the wrong message to …
Trump: No, I don’t think so.
Burns: … drug dealers?
Trump: Look, I think, uh, you know, when you weaponize government … uh, they’ve weaponized their government just like they did over here. I’m one of the people that survived. But they weaponize the government. We had the most weaponized government. Our … our election was rigged. They went after me. I was impeached twice. I was indicted. They indicted me. I came out good. Here we are in the White House. Things are looking nice. But they were vicious, uh, and they, uh … they are vicious. They’re sick people.
The whole thing is like that, on every topic.
In terms of cognitive function, Trump is deteriorating quickly from what was already a badly degraded baseline — seriously, listen to an interview with him from 25 years ago, another from ten years ago, and then this — and the fact of the matter is that neither the American political nor legal systems have any adequate way of dealing with something like this, because, and only because, of the utterly corrupt state of the Republican party.
I keep telling my students that all my favorite surreal films from the 1970s — none of which they’ve seen naturally — have ended up turning into anticipatory documentaries of our own miserable age.