A National Review editorial asserted this week that President Donald Trump’s fear of dying from advanced age or murder is driving his chaotic second term.
“Trump is old and was two inches from involuntarily landscaping greater Pennsylvania with his grey matter,” the Review’s Luther Ray Abel wrote, referring to the assassination attempt on Trump that left him with a bullet-grazed ear in July.
“While a retired professor friend of mine scoffed at the notion that a handful of assassination attempts have goaded Trump, I’m confident that his lizard brain has computed the probability of surviving his term despite age and act of terror and decided that he will do everything in his power to be remembered as a reformer/martyr,” the writer continued.
No specifics were mentioned but Trump has drawn concern and anger over his cutting of federal jobs with Elon Musk as his hatchet man; his antagonism toward allies such as Ukraine, Mexico and Canada; his perceived allegiance to Russian President Vladimir Putin; and his efforts to bully the press.
In its assessment that Trump has a grim mindset, the editorial accused the president of being “melodramatic,” but “that’s his shtick.”
“He saw the way Biden moldered until he was so incapacitated that he was loaded in a wheelbarrow and rolled off to Delaware; Trump took a look at that and said, “Sorry old b******, that’s not for me.”
The writer also cited Trump’s “done-now” attitude and choice of a running mate, Vice President JD Vance, who will not push back at his boss’ initiatives, as factors behind his lack of “restraint.”
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Trump, 78, might clarify further where he’s at during his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday.