President Donald Trump is approaching the “beginning of the end,” one political analyst says, and so his old tricks are seeing diminishing returns.
Foreign policy expert David Rothkopf, appearing on The Daily Beast Podcast, summed up how the 79-year-old president is losing on multiple fronts. Iran and the economy are a “catastrophe,” he said, while Democrats are poised to retake the House—and possibly the Senate—in a matter of months, meaning Trump “is going to start being investigated 100 ways to Sunday on his deals, on his crimes, on his violations of the law across the board.”
Rothkopf added that Trump now knows that his Cabinet, which had remained unchanged for over a year, is not “going to protect him,” and so firings have commenced, with the help of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“Everywhere he looks, there are rabid hyenas. He’s cornered, and nothing he’s doing is working,” Rothkopf said. “All his old tricks—'I’m going to bulls--t my way out of it.’ Nope, that’s not going to work. ‘I’m going to distract them with something else.’ Nope, that’s not going to work. ‘I’m going to charm my way out of this.’ Nope, that’s not going to work. ‘I’m going to have some billionaire pay for something to get me out of this.’ Nope. He doesn’t know what to do.”
“And on top of it all,” Rothkopf continued, “he’s dying. He is old. He is infirm. He disappears for three days at a time.”
Trump was largely absent from public view from Wednesday through Sunday. That day, Easter Sunday, he chose to skip church but was seen at his Virginia golf club with bandages on his right hand.
”He doesn’t have what he used to," as Rothkopf put it. “It would be poignant if the guy wasn’t the world’s biggest motherf---er.”
For the rest of the year, Rothkopf continued, the main storyline will be how Trump reacts to the Republican party and “all of Washington” distancing themselves from him. One way that will be shown, he said, is through leaks from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill.
“It is kind of like Shakespeare, because King Lear is out there and he’s on the heath and what is he worried about? His daughters have turned on him and he’s an old man and he’s dying and he’s losing his power and that’s where Donald Trump is. He’s out there on the heath. He’s screaming at the heavens. He’s losing it, and he knows there is no turning back from that.”
On Easter morning, for instance, Trump made a profane Truth Social post directed at Iran, spurring concerns about the president’s health from Democratic lawmakers and even some right-wing commentators like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
“I think that we are seeing the beginning of the end of Trump,” Rothkopf said. “Now, will he react desperately, crazily? Of course, we’re seeing it with his tweets and his unnecessary wars and his lashing out at people and his firing Pam Bondi, who you could not have had a more loyal attorney general. But she’s not getting rid of Epstein. She’s not getting rid of his opponents. So, let’s get a bigger lackey in there. Let’s find an even worse attorney general. Let’s do something even worse at each one of these agencies.”
When reached for comment, the White House knocked Rothkopf’s credibility via a recycled response that was first given last month.
“Nobody knows who David Rothkopf is,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told the Daily Beast. “He sounds like a loser and cuck. David is likely angry he was part of a generation that allowed the Iranian Regime and America’s enemies to kill and threaten Americans at home and abroad. Nobody should take him seriously.”
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