Can we gather the family together and discuss what we’re going to do about Dad?

That El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago is unfit to be president* is not worthy of debate; he was unfit to be president* the day he was born. That he is a grifter and a wastrel and a profiteer has been demonstrated over and over again, most recently by ProPublica, which on Wednesday published a whopper based on some portions of the president*’s tax returns that ProPublica has obtained. (It is the high-end real estate equivalent of a used-car dealer who turns back odometers.) But there is one more thing that is often whispered about but rarely said out loud.

The President* of the United States is pretty clearly more than half-mad and, more and more, it’s becoming harder to keep a lid on that part of his unfitness for office. On Wednesday, during a press availability with the president of Italy, he was a rambling, snuffling mess of a person, and what he was saying was so detached from reality that it’s a wonder that he didn’t float off over the Potomac. When Nixon was spending the nights sockless drunk and talking to the pictures on the wall, he didn’t do it on national television. We didn’t hear about it until Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein wrote about it in their book. But this performance on Wednesday was right out there in the open, in the middle of the day.

Normal stuff, every day. Alex Wong Getty Images

There’s no hiding it any more. The president* has lost it.

"That has nothing to do with us. They’ve got a lot of sand over there ... There's a lot of sand they can play with.”

That was in response to a question as to whether the United States should get involved if Turkey launches a full-scale invasion of Syria.

"The PKK, which is a part of the Kurds...is probably worse at terror, more of a terrorist threat in many ways, than ISIS…If you look at the Kurds, and again I say this with great respect: they're no angels. If you look at PKK—take a look at PKK. ISIS respects PKK. You know why? Because they're as tougher, or tougher, than ISIS."

That was in response to a question about his responsibility for the slaughter of our former allies in northern Iraq.

Our country is looking into the corruption of the 2016 election. It was a corrupt election, whether it's Comey or McCabe or Strzok or his lover, Lisa Page, 2 great lovers. There was a corruption. Maybe it goes right up to President Obama. I happen to think it does.

These were the money quotes in an utterly insane rant about how Obama tried to rig the 2016 election against him.

Lindsey Graham would like to stay in the Middle East for the next 1,000 years with thousands of soldiers fighting other people's wars. I wanna get out of the Middle East. I think Lindsey should focus right now on Judiciary, like the Democrats—the do-nothing Democrats as I call them because they're doing nothing, they're getting nothing done. They're not getting USMCA done between Canada, the United States and Mexico. They're getting nothing done.”

This is what he said about his most embarrassing congressional lickspittle, who has taken exception at what’s going on since the president* turned turtle on the border between Turkey and Syria. No worries, though, since, by the afternoon, asked if the president* were fit for office, Graham replied:

“Nobody asked me if Obama was fit to be president when he got out of Iraq and unleashed the forces of hell. I said about Obama what I’m saying now about Trump, and it’s for the people to judge. I think this a mistake worse than what Obama did.”

Good boy, Huckleberry. Fetch!

Lindsey Graham will be back in line soon enough. Caroline Brehman Getty Images

There is a constitutional remedy for a criminal president. There is a constitutional remedy for a president who is crazy. There is no constitutional remedy for a president* who is both simultaneously. The House is pursuing impeachment over the abuse of office because various important Republicans refuse to do their duty and work the 25th amendment the way it was meant to work. Meanwhile, somebody should sneak down the hall and snatch the car keys—or, in this case, the 50 U.S. nukes that the Turkish government is "holding hostage" at Incirlik Airbase in Turkey. Somebody should hide the damn car keys.

Update: Holy hell, it's worse than we thought. From The Guardian:

Schumer says after Trump meeting on Syria: "he was insulting particularly to the Speaker. He called her a third rate politician.... said there were Communists involved. You guys might like that."

Schumer says it wasn't a "dialog" it was a "diatribe."



Get the net.

Update to the Update: Jesus God, I hope this is a prank that I've fallen for and will feel obligated to apologize for tomorrow.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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