It’s Time to Talk About Donald Trump’s Logorrhea

 

It’s Time to Talk About Donald Trump’s Logorrhea

How many polite ways are there to ask whether the President of the United States is losing it?

 

By Susan B. Glasser

January 22, 2026

 

Donald Trump is an editor’s nightmare and a psychiatrist’s dream. Amid all the coverage marking the first anniversary of his return to the White House, one story—which did not get the attention it deserved—stood out for me: a Times analysis of how much more the President has been talking and talking and talking. The findings? One million nine hundred and seventy-seven thousand six hundred and nine words in the Presidential appearances, as of January 20th—an increase of two hundred and forty-five per cent compared with the first year of Trump’s first term in office, back in 2017.

There are many conclusions to be drawn from this astonishing statistic, including the obvious one, that our leader loves the sound of his own voice, and the slightly less obvious corollary that he has no one around him willing or able to tell him to shut up. It’s also true that, in rambling on so much, Trump reveals just about everything one could ever want to know about him—his lack of discipline, his ignorance, his vanity, insecurity, and crudeness, and a mean streak that knows no limits. “It is remarkable how a man cannot summarize his thoughts in even the most general sort of way without betraying himself completely,” Thomas Mann wrote a century ago, in his novel “The Magic Mountain,” set in a sanitarium perched above the Swiss mountain town of Davos, where Trump spent the better part of this week proving to the stunned attendees of the annual World Economic Forum the continuing relevance of Mann’s observation.

“Sometimes, you need a dictator,” Trump soliloquized on Wednesday, during a reception for business leaders. A few hours earlier, in an address that lasted a full hour and a half, the President had announced that he would not invade Greenland, despite his recent threats; explained that “stupid people” buy windmills; and admitted that he had decided to raise tariffs on Switzerland, because its Prime Minister, “a woman,” had “rubbed me the wrong way.” The speech, during which Trump four times referred to Iceland when he meant Greenland, was more than twice the combined length of the addresses of the French President, Emmanuel Macron, and the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz. On Tuesday, speaking to the White House press corps to mark the actual anniversary of his return to office, Trump had discoursed on everything from his mother telling him he could have been a Major League baseball player and explaining to him what a mental asylum was to his hatred for Somalia and its “very low-I.Q. people.” That one lasted a hundred and four minutes.

Trump, of course, was rude, untruthful, and excessively, if not quite so egregiously, long-winded in his first term, too. The difference today, as he presides over a cowed American government, whose checks and balances no longer function as they used to, is that his Administration is far more willing and able to turn his fantastical words into tangible realities. The President, it now seems clear, has the world’s most consequential case of untreated logorrhea. (Dictionary definition of this condition: “Excessive and often incoherent talkativeness.”)

And I’m not just referring to the week’s crisis over Greenland and the future of the NATO alliance, a crisis which began and (sort of) ended with many words being uttered by Trump about his “psychological” need to own the vast and strategically located Danish territory. Consider, for example, Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which he débuted before leaving Davos on Thursday morning. In Trump 1.0, perhaps this would have been no more than one of his Twitter controversies, in which he posted some crazy graphic of himself leading a rump group of world powers to overthrow the United Nations as the new permanent chairman of the global board of directors. In Trump 2.0, his alternate reality is not just a social-media post or the subject of an over-my-dead-body fight with his latest panicked national security adviser but an in-person photo op featuring the President, a real-life logo copied from the U.N.’s, and a random assortment of world leaders who were willing to buy a seat on Trump’s committee for a cool billion dollars. (Belarus and Qatar, yes; Britain, France, Germany, and every other major U.S. ally in Europe, no.) I highly recommend watching the fully live-streamed event, a show one might caption “Donald Trump and his pretend League of (Lesser) Superheroes, with himself as a bizarro Superman in charge of the world.”

My favorite moment was when—after bragging about how “everybody wants to be a part of” the board that every other major world leader, with the possible exception of the war-mongering pariah Vladimir Putin, refused to join—he claimed that the group he himself had dreamed up was some distinguished independent organization that had solicited his chairmanship. “I was very honored when they asked me to do it,” he said. For all I know, he believed it.

Perhaps just as revealing, when Trump reached the fulsome self-praise section of his speech, he explained that he was such an incredible peacemaker that he had even managed to end wars in places where he had not known they were happening. Imagine admitting this about yourself. Another quote from “The Magic Mountain” sprang to mind: “I know I am talking nonsense, but I’d rather go rambling on. . . .”

Adecade into the Trump era, Americans are more or less used to this manic political performance art, proof, if we still needed it, that millions of our fellow-citizens are all right with having a clearly disturbed leader who cannot control what he says. (Although, to be fair, even some partisan Republicans are starting to worry that they could pay a serious price this fall for what the G.O.P. strategist Karl Rove, no fan of Trump’s, called Trump’s unnerving“rambling appearances” and “downward spiral” in his latest Wall Street Journal column, headlined “Is Trump Trying to Lose the Midterms?”)

But the stunned reaction of so many Europeans to a week living in the full-on Trump talk cycle ought to remind us that there’s something to be said for the plainer interpretation of Trump’s out-of-control behavior, even if years of intensive exposure in the U.S. have inured us to it.

“This is a wake-up call, a bigger one than we’ve ever had,” Christine Lagarde, the head of the European Central Bank, said.

“The time has come to stand up against Trump,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former prime minister of Denmark and secretary-general of NATO, said.

It was only a few days before his speech in Davos, on the eve of his visit to Switzerland, that Trump was revealed to have sent a text to the Prime Minister of Norway, complaining that, because Norway had denied him the Nobel Peace Prize, he was under no obligation to proceed peacefully in his desire to take over Greenland. The message, surely a first in diplomatic annals, began: “Dear Jonas, Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”

Lars-Christian Brask, a deputy speaker of the Danish parliament, no doubt spoke for many in Europe when he responded to this evidence of Trump’s “mad and erratic behavior” by asking on television whether the President was still capable of running the United States.

What struck me was how calm, reasonable, and puzzled Brask’s tone was as he said it. But it’s going to be a long three more years; there’s almost certainly going to be a lot of shouting before this is all over. How many polite ways, after all, are there to ask whether the President of the United States has lost his mind? 

 

Davos Was the Beginning of the End for Trump It's all downhill for here for the America's aging mad king David Rothkopf Jan 23 This past week was momentous on several levels. I say that with acute awareness that drawing grand conclusions about the consequences of events as they happen is a fool’s errand, the business of TV anchors and sportscasters who are far too eager to proclaim “history was made today.” But sometimes—after a massive battlefield defeat or a major political upheaval or an especially significant natural disaster—it is clear the world will not be the same again. Donald Trump began the week high on his own supply. Completing the first year of his second term, he had succeeded in becoming the most powerful American president in history. Yes, he had the assistance of a corrupt and profoundly misguided extremist majority on the U.S. Supreme Court and a spineless, visionless U.S. Congress. But there is no denying that he was implementing his second-term agenda at home and abroad with surprising speed. Institutions were gutted. Enemies were targeted. History was rewritten. Unprecedented corruption was both overlooked and had reached the scale of a major multinational business. He had developed a mythology that he was a peacemaker that at least some of the American people believed (even if he actually played that role in almost none of the cases for which he was claiming credit). He projected American power in small bursts that were essentially unchallenged and as part of initiatives that had America withdrawing from risky situations in the blinking of an eye. He spoke of grand plans, conquests even, with the bravura of a man who seemingly did not remember his lifetime of failures and defeats. A week ago, he was boasting of a new doctrine by which he would control the Western Hemisphere and making demands that the U.S. be handed Greenland by Denmark simply because Trump wanted it. He flew off to the World Economic Forum in Davos expecting the event would mark a kind of ratification of his role as the world’s latest emperor. Newspaper headlines supported his thesis, explaining that the entire event had been organized Trump-centrically on Trumpian terms to serve the Trumpiest of objectives. But even before Trump arrived in the Swiss village that is as picturesque and pleasant for 51 weeks of each year as it is as odious and choked with ego and excess for one, there were signs that trouble was brewing. Trump’s advance guard, mimicking their boss’ overweening arrogance and headache= inducing ignorance, were met with resistance and ridicule. Trump’s demands to annex Greenland were also recognized as a profound threat to NATO, to the Western alliance more broadly, to Europe, and to the rule of law in the world and the mood in Davos was one of anger and Trump-skepticism. A Fiasco in the Alps When Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick channeled Trump before a crowd at a Black Rock event on Tuesday, the crowd booed him and senior European officials walked out on him when he asserted that Europe was essentially dead. They did not much like his recitation of other MAGA talking points from asserting that the world should embrace burning more coal to the nonsensical assertion that Trump was actually making the U.S. economy stronger with is tariffs and exploding fiscal deficits and his efforts to undermine democracy in America. (The stock market did not like Trump’s Greenland saber-rattling either and gave him a swift kick in his sensitive parts to start off the week.) The smarm of other Trump officials, notably Secretary of Smarm Scott Bessent, was also seen as a turn=off because—well, let’s be honest, lies inside condescension wrapped in smarm is just not a confection anyone finds appetizing or even digestible. (Which is saying something at the World Economic Forum, an event known for decades for its really grim food offerings.) Worse still for Trump were concrete signs that many of the leaders of the countries present had had enough of the American president’s bullying and general obnoxiousness. This was illustrated with exceptional clarity when Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered an address in which he declared that the alliances and global order that had been the foundation of much of world peace for that past eighty years had “ruptured.” He eschewed the language of capitulation and flattery and minimizing Trumpian offenses that had been common in most public statements about Trump in the past year. He spoke in hard truths. Perhaps his most searing insight was that the global integration that had been touted for years as lifting all nations was being weaponized and used as leverage to advance the agenda of the world’s demented Sasquatch. Ok. He didn’t call Trump a demented Sasquatch. Not in so many words anyway. He did not even refer to him by name. When Carney said if you’re not at the table these days then you’re on the menu, everyone knew exactly what he was talking about and when he called for the world’s “middle powers” to band together because solidarity was the only way to stop the afore-unmentioned demented Sasquatch, people were energized and hopeful. Indeed, Mark Carney got one of the very, very few standing ovations in the more than 50 year history of the World Economic Forum. All. Because. He. Essentially. Told. Trump. To. Go. To. Hell. It was a tour de force. It was as intellectually well-reasoned and argued as one would expect from the brilliant former head of both the Bank of England and of Canada’s central bank. But it was also the nerd kicking the ass of the big hulking bully on the schoolyard. It was David smacking Goliath in the forehead with a stone and ending the battle before the giant had another chance to stomp forward. It was Victor Laszlo getting the band to play the Marseillaise to drown out the Nazis in “Casablanca.” You may think I’m being melodramatic. But if you recognize what a menace Trump is and the costs to the world of failing to stand up to him, then you will agree with me that it was an important watershed. That became clearer in the wake of Trump’s own speech. Not only did it contain elements of Trump’s signature incoherence and racism, Trump’s speech was so contemptuous of America’s most important allies that everyone I have spoken to who heard it came away suggesting that it marked the end of an era. How could Europeans ever rely on America as an ally if the American people could elect a man like Trump? How could they not view America as having gone from being their most important friend to being one of the greatest threats they face? A Formula for Defeating Trump Even though Trump said during the speech that he would not use force to claim Greenland, he made it absolutely clear during the speech (and in remarks afterward) that he did not believe the U.S. gained from the alliance and that he viewed Europeans as freeloaders and subordinates to the United States. (His minimization this week of European sacrifices on behalf of America post 9/11 were so offensive even the most timid regional leaders, like U.K. Prime Minister-ish Keir Starmer, felt compelled to speak out against them in the strongest terms.) Even though Trump later said the Greenland issue was resolved by a concept of a plan that would be revealed in “two weeks” (a Trumpian euphemism for an indefinite future that never comes), the damage was done. Admittedly, Trump had been doing damage since his first term in office. He has also been a NATO-skeptic. He had already greatly damaged the alliance by withdrawing the vast majority of U.S. support for Ukraine. His tariff madness had blown up in the international trading system but also sent the message that the U.S. was an erratic, selfish and unreliable partner. His insults flowed steadily. But until this week, Europe had essentially smiled and said, “Please sir, may I have another?” But then came a Greenland threat that Europeans saw as a direct military threat to them and as an effort that could blow up NATO (and maybe was intended to do just that.) And then came the ugliness of this past week. And the die was cast. They would have to turn the page. They would have to enter a new era of independence. Carney’s rallying cry was clearly not a lone voice in the wilderness. He spoke for almost all of the major Western powers. That became clear when, in the wake of Trump’s speech in which he threatened to punish Europe with tariffs if they did not hand over Greenland (or Iceland, he was not sure which), the EU showed a hitherto unexpressed resolve and unity. They said that they were withdrawing from the trade deal struck with the U.S. last year (which itself was an attempt to role back Trump’s tariffs). In my view, this was the blow that brought Trump to his knees. It was this unified, strong decision and Europe’s clear statement that they were willing to fight fire with fire and that they would not be bullied that caused Trump to fold on Greenland. The deal he has allegedly struck…or conceptually paid lip service to…will, as far as anyone can tell, just ratify the status quo. It is unlikely to give the U.S. more than prior treaties—like the one from 1951—have done. That may seem like a wash but its not. Because while the U.S. gains nothing what it and what the world have lost is immeasurable. A vital alliance is shattered. The trust of America’s closest friends is gone. In a dark irony, the big threat that Trump argued warranted America’s takeover of Greenland—a threat of Russian and Chinese strategic gains—was actually realized as a result of Trump’s alleged measure to protect against it. (I say alleged because having studied Trump for years and having spoken to many of his closest advisors from the past, I believe destroying NATO and assisting his friends in Russia has always been a Trump priority…perhaps his number one international priority other than enriching his own family.) If there is any good news in this it is that the Europeans and the nations of the world have learned what American observers of Trump have long known: Cooperating with him, flattering him, trying to cut deals with him, will only lead to tears. He always…always…betrays those he works with, those he is close to, his partners, his family, his supporters, his donors, his defenders…every one. All of them. Always. The only way to deal with Trump is to stand up to him. He does not like being challenged. He folds when confronted with strength of any sort. While, sadly, many in America’s political establishment (in both parties) do not seem to understand this or want to understand it, increasingly in the private sector and in the international community (China understood first) and among effective activists, the reality is sinking in. Unity plus strength plus guts is the formula for defeating Trump. A Real Bright Line in History This week was the most prominent demonstration of those principles in action. While Trump may not realize it, its lessons are clear and will inspire others. This week also saw further evidence of the sources of his prior strength being sapped. Time and aging were certainly playing their role. He is an increasingly frail, increasingly mentally unfit old man now. His initiatives and policies are widely unpopular in the U.S. He is a lame duck. A battle to succeed him is already taking shape within his party. He is likely to suffer massive defeats in this November’s elections. The courts are defeating some of his efforts. The incompetence of the team around him is undermining others. Companies (see Exxon) are standing up to him. So too are at least a few Republicans. (And also this week: Jack Smith reminded us of a core truth: Trump’s crimes against the U.S. are manifold, serious and provable beyond a reasonable doubt.) Last November I wrote an article in which I predicted 2026 would be a nightmarish year for Trump—in part because of many of the reasons stated in the preceding paragraph. This week has accelerated that process. It is historic because it marks the end of a productive chapter in the history of trans-Atlantic relations and, face it, the end of American leadership in the world as we have known it. But it is also of great consequence because it marks a massive, ugly, public defeat of Trump and the establishment for all to see of the means by which the menace who is America’s president can be contained and, where necessary, defeated.

 

Breaking the Fourth Amendment

Joyce Vance

Jan 22, 2026

Last night, we learned from a report in the Associated Press that ICE, contrary to longstanding Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, is taking the position that it can enter people’s homes without a judicial warrant. Instead, they believe that an administrative warrant suffices. An administrative warrant is a form signed by an “authorized immigration official,” which means an executive branch employee who can be fired if they displease the president. It’s not difficult to see the problem here.

The Fourth Amendment provides that: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” It’s the reason your home can’t be searched by the police without a search warrant that has been supported with probable cause to believe that evidence or fruits of a crime will be found there.

ICE seems to be arguing that if they think a non-citizen for whom there is a final order of deportation is in a house, they can blow right past the Fourth Amendment, take the doors off the house if they aren’t admitted voluntarily, and go right in. But the Fourth Amendment doesn’t change just because ICE says so.

The Supreme Court has made it clear that a search warrant must be signed by a “judicial officer” or a “magistrate.” Their signature on the warrant says that they have reviewed the evidence that the agents believe constitutes probable cause to justify a search, and they agree that it is sufficient to breach the wall otherwise established by the Fourth Amendment and allow law enforcement into a private home (or car, or private areas of a business, etc.). The idea is that a detached, neutral judge—not someone involved in investigating a case or “on the same side” as law enforcement—should evaluate the evidence before a search warrant or an arrest warrant is issued.

As the Supreme Court explained in Johnson v. U.S., in 1948: “The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.”

ICE seems to be treating its enforcement activities like a funny inside joke, calling the newly launched surge in Maine “Operation Catch of the Day.”

The Fourth Amendment means that if law enforcement comes to your door and says they want to search, the first thing to do is to ask to see the warrant. ICE’s new policy adds a wrinkle to this. Now, to make sure their rights are protected, people will have to determine whether the warrant is a lawful judicial warrant, in which case they must allow officers to enter, as long as the warrant is for the correct location, or whether it’s an administrative warrant, in which case they can deny entry.

This is an example of a judicial warrant, annotated by lawyers at the ACLU who use it as an example for training. You can see that it’s a district court form, and at the bottom, the signature block is for a judge. The warrant is only valid if it’s signed by a judge.

Compare that to an administrative warrant, which is not sufficient for Fourth Amendment purposes. Note that it requires the signature of an “immigration officer,” an executive branch employee. That runs afoul of the Court’s requirement of a neutral and detached magistrate. This warrant might permit agents to arrest the person who has a final deportation order if they are found in a public place. It doesn’t permit the search of a home.

But ICE’s new policy raises the concern that agents will go right on in, relying on the new policy. The whistleblower complaint that made it public alleges that the memo, signed by Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, states, "Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office of General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose.”

DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin unintentionally confirmed the illegality of the use of a DHS form I-205 as though it were a judicial search warrant. She said, "Every illegal alien who DHS serves administrative warrants/I-205s have had full due process and a final order of removal from an immigration judge. The officers issuing these administrative warrants also have found probable cause. For decades, the Supreme Court and Congress have recognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration enforcement." Yes, administrative warrants may suffice for deportation. But they don’t make the Fourth Amendment irrelevant. ICE seems to be conceding that is the position that it’s now taking.

In a week where we’ve seen a protester held on the ground while chemicals are sprayed in their face and a five year old boy used as bait to lure his father before putting the child in deportation proceeding on his own—two stories that shock the conscience and conjure up black and white pictures of the Gestapo, violating the Fourth Amendment might seem like something that should take a backseat. But it’s equally important. The Whistleblower complaint says that the ICE policy authorizes agents to use “a necessary and reasonable amount of force to enter the alien's residence." Even without a lawful warrant, ICE may be instructing its agents to force their way into people’s homes illegally.

ICE knew the advice it was giving wouldn’t pass muster. Policies that provide operational guidance to agents are written, emailed throughout an agency, and often available publicly. That didn’t happen here. The whistleblower said it was “tightly held” at DHS. “The May 12 Memo has been provided to select DHS officials who are then directed to verbally brief the new policy for action,” the complaint states. “Those supervisors then show the Memo to some employees, like our clients, and direct them to read the Memo and return it to the supervisor.” Training on the memo was done verbally, but the policy was not provided in writing.

Nothing says agency leaders know they’re violating the law like that kind of unusual treatment.

Senator Richard Blumenthal said, “It is a legally and morally abhorrent policy that exemplifies the kinds of dangerous, disgraceful abuses America is seeing in real time. In our democracy, with vanishingly rare exceptions, the government is barred from breaking into your home without a judge giving a green light.”

Sunlight is a good disinfectant for government abuse. The hope here is that by exposing the policy, ICE will be deterred from using it in the future. It’s an outrageous abuse, as they seem well aware. But there are stories, including the two we discussed last night, that suggest there may be civil lawsuits against the agency in the offing and perhaps a more proactive attempt to get the courts to prohibit this practice. None of that would be necessary with an administration that was acting in good faith. But it’s abundantly clear that this one isn’t.

Evil triumphs when good people do nothing. That’s why it's important that we contact our elected officials in Congress and demand that they investigate and demand that ICE retract its policy. We know that this administration continues to push the limits once it gets started. At first, it may have been noncitizens with deportation orders. Some people may have thought it was okay, lawful, but awful. This week, it was a frail, elderly American citizen, forced out into the icy cold and detained after ICE entered his home without a judicial warrant. There is no telling where this will end up if we don’t shine a spotlight so bright that ICE can’t withstand it.

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We’re in this together,

Joyce