Donald Trump began his day standing with a person in a giant bunny costume and boasting about the Iran war to an audience of children.
The annual Easter egg roll on the White House South Lawn conjured a fitting Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland image for a US president who has disappeared down what many would call a rabbit hole.
A couple of hours later, Trump strode into the desperately crowded briefing room, flanked not by an outsized rabbit but the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth. He held a press conference that did little to dispel growing fears that the commander-in-chief has lost touch with reality.
First he celebrated the successful weekend retrieval from Iran of a US airman whose jet was shot down on Friday. Trump lavished praise on everyone involved in the operation. “It’s not even talent, it’s genius,” he said. “It’s the whole ball game.”
The more he talked, the more it became clear that second term Trump has fallen in love with men in uniform. The men in suits on Capitol Hill, with their mundane concerns about bills and budgets, are boring compared to the Top Gun thrill ride with awesome soldiers, weapons and big explosions.
Trump, who last week made a $1.5tn budget request for the Pentagon while slashing domestic programmes, savored details of the rescue mission in a way he never does over policy legislation.
He described its location as if it was from a Hollywood film, saying: “You could call it central casting if you were doing a movie for location.” Introducing John Ratcliffe, his CIA director, he told reporters: “He’s central casting, OK? If we cast a movie, he’s going to play the head of the CIA.”
This disconnect from reality appears profoundly dangerous. It implies that Trump is not paying attention to civilian casualties in Iran – a subject he never mentions – nor aware of the consequences should he follow through on his threat to destroy bridges and power plants on Tuesday night.
“The entire country could be taken out in one night and that night might be tomorrow night,” he warned darkly.
Human rights watchdogs would regard it as collective punishment with no clear strategic purpose. Trump insisted the Iranian people believe it is a price worth paying to bring down the regime. “They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom,” he claimed without evidence.
“We’ve had numerous intercepts, ‘Please keep bombing’. Bombs that are dropping near their homes. ‘Please keep bombing’ and these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding … They want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about.”
When a reporter began, “Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva conventions and international law”, Trump interrupted: “Who you with? Who you with?”
The reporter said he was from the New York Times. Trump deployed his old deflection tactic, saying: “The failing New York Times. Your circulation way down at the New York Times.” Pressed on whether he was concerned his threat to bomb bridges and power plants could amount to war crimes, he retorted: “No, not at all, no I’m not. I hope I don’t have to do it.”
Blatant and brazen, Trump seemed to take every crude stereotype the world has about American chauvinism, jingoism and imperialism and sets about proving them true.
Asked about a statement that he would like to take Iran’s oil, Trump replied: “I’m a businessman first.” Gen Dan Caine, standing nearby, darted a look at him. The president continued: “To the victor go the spoils.”
He also implied that the US is waging a holy war. “God was watching us,” he said. “We were in Easter territory, I guess.”
Hegseth, who has a long association with Christian nationalism, even compared the rescue to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He told reporters: “Shot down on a Friday, Good Friday, hidden in a cave, a crevice, all of Saturday and rescued on Sunday, flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn. All home and accounted for. A nation rejoicing. God is good.”
Meanwhile, one reporter noted that on Sunday Trump had used his Truth Social platform to call the Iranians “crazy bastards” (he also used other language best not repeated at the Easter egg roll). The reporter asked: “What is your response to critics who say – ” Trump interjected: “I don’t care about critics.”
The reporter tried again: “What is your response to critics who say it is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?” There were some audible tuts in the briefing room, as if the president’s cognitive state remains a taboo subject. Trump said: “Well, I haven’t heard that. But if that’s the case, you’re going to have to have more people like me.”
But the question of Trump’s mental health cannot be wished away. Sunday’s wild Truth Social post led a flurry of Democrats and others to use words such as “insane”, “madman”, “unhinged”, “deranged lunatic” and “dangerous and mentally unbalanced”. Several urged the cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment to declare him unfit for office and remove him.
In recent weeks Trump has declared the US does not need the strait of Hormuz only to now make dire threats over it; he has bragged about total dominance of Iranian skies only for a US fighter jet to be shot down; he has claimed that the war is already won only to signal a dramatic escalation.
On Monday he teased a run for president of Venezuela (“I will quickly learn Spanish”), claimed that North Korea’s Kim Jong-un used to call Joe Biden “a mentally retarded person” and signed off by explaining where it all went sour with Nato: “We want Greenland, and they don’t want to give it to us, and I said, ‘Bye-bye!’”
The performance will only have reinforced fears that the nuclear codes are in the possession of the Mad Hatter.
