‘The King Is Mad’ — Capehart’s Continuing Obsession With Trump’s ‘Mental Acuity’

Jonathan Capehart-The Weekend-8-29-26

Jonathan Capehart can't kick his obsession with President Trump's "mental acuity." Last week, we caught The Weekend co-host devoting a segment to this subject. This from the guy who left on the cutting room floor the most newsworthy moment from his 2022 interview of Biden, when he zoned out, and Capehart had to nudge him back with a "Mr. President?" 

Capehart was back at it on Saturday's episode of the show. He declared that he "won't let the president focus on the things he's focusing on [renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America, the ballroom, etc.] and not remind people that we should be asking about the president's mental acuity." 

Capehart asked MS NOW's Laura Barron-Lopez whether people in the White House or on Capitol Hill are talking about what is apparently obvious to him, that: "the King is mad." 

Barron-Lopez responded: 

"I'll say there is talk on Capitol Hill, based on the people that I've talked to. It is hard to tell in the White House if there is real talk about this. And if there is, it's quietly, and it's not to the president himself." 

Since Barron-Lopez claimed that "there is talk on Capitol Hill" akin to "the King is mad"—i.e., insane—she should have supplied some details of what was said, rather than making vague allusions to water-cooler gossip. 

The only evidence Barron-Lopez offered as to Trump's mental state was that, in one media post ranking presidents, he had put Woodrow Wilson in an upper tier, and in another, at the bottom. 

Speaking of flimsy proof, in a clip the show played, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, speaking of Trump's White House staff, declared that “most people have decided that they want to go do something else.” Almost everyone wants to leave?

 

MS NOW’s lower-third [see screencap] echoed that: NYT’S HABERMAN: “MOST” WHITE HOUSE STAFF WANT TO LEAVE. "

To know that “most” White House staffers want to leave, Haberman would have had to interview the lot of them, and they all would have been willing to divulge their most sensitive career plans to a New York Times reporter. Odds of both those prerequisites having happened? About the same as the Browns winning the Super Bowl. 

Capehart’s closing civics lesson was that presidents leave a mark by “doing things, real things,” and that the country honors them “after they’re gone, not while they’re still here.” 

The network that called Joe Biden “sharp as a tack” and edited out the moments that suggested otherwise, now demands a running probe of Trump’s mind — with Capehart as attending physician. 

Here's the transcript. 
 

MS NOW 
The Weekend 
8/29/26 
7:09 am EDT 

MAGGIE HABERMAN [clip from 8/27]: He is not in a great place with his staff, according to everyone we talked to. He is lashing out a lot, which tends to happen when things aren't going well. 

And most people have decided that, that they want to go do something else. That's not everybody, and there will be other people who come in. 

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Okay, Laura, I'm going to opine here. You know why folks aren't happy in the White House, and you know why things, the president might not be, things aren't going well? Because he's focused on the wrong stuff. 

And it gets back to my basic question, because I won't let the president focus on the things he's focusing on, Lake America and Gulf of America and the frickin' ballroom and the, the arch and all these things, and not remind, remind people that we should be asking about the president's mental acuity. 

At some point, are these, are, are folks in the White House, is there any water cooler talk? Is there any talk on, on Capitol Hill about not just that the president isn't focused on affordability, gas prices, housing, that, that the king is mad. 

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: I'll say there is talk on Capitol Hill, based on the people that I've talked to. It is hard to tell in the White House if there is real talk about this. And if there is, it's quietly, and it's not to the president himself. But I've even talked to government officials, at, at agencies who have said that they don't think the president knows aware of certain decisions, of a lot of decisions, that are made by his White House. 

And I think that, one thing that stood out to me this week that captures what you're talking about, Jonathan, is that the president posted on Truth Social two things this week. It was, a graph of comparing himself to other presidents, and it ranked himself as the highest level of presidents in history. And also the two photos contradicted each other. In one of them, he ranked Woodrow Wilson as like one of the second greatest, and in another one, he said that Woodrow Wilson was like one of the worst presidents ever. 

So just to give a, a little bit about where his mind is at, it's on that, it is on his mortality. It is on, which he talks about a lot, it is on his mark that he's trying to leave, whether, you know, the courts allow him to or not, he is steamrolling through it. And it's his place in history that he is focused on. 

CAPEHART: You know how, you know how you leave your mark? How other presidents have left their mark? Is by doing things. Real thing that have helped other people, which then allows the country to say, You know what? We should honor this person after they're gone. Not while they're still here and by himself. 

JACKIE ALEMANY: He's definitely doing things [panel laughs.]