As fears over Nato and Greenland hung in the air, president veered wildly off topic in briefing to tout his successes
“I
was quite the baseball player, you wouldn’t believe,” said Donald Trump, suddenly wistful as he recalled his the salad days when his mother would tell him, “Son, you could be a professional baseball player,” and he would reply, “Thanks, mom.” Carpe diem!
Not for the first time on Tuesday, the US president had veered wildly off topic. The point of this story was a “big building” that “loomed over the park” in Queens, New York, where he used to play little league baseball. When he asked why it had bars on the windows, she told him it was a mental hospital.
Trump, 79, a self-proclaimed “very stable genius” who keeps “acing” cognitive tests, made so many references to the “mentally insane” and “insane asylums” in the White House briefing room that it seemed like insecurity. It also gave cold comfort to a watching world that fears the future of the transatlantic alliance now lies in the hands of a modern Caligula.
