I don’t know who thought it was a good idea for Donald Trump to do an interview with the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg, but I do know he hates his boss. I mean, could anyone buy better proof of his dementia? That’s how bad today’s event was.

He couldn’t answer simple questions. He sure-as-hell couldn’t answer complex ones. He failed to show basic knowledge and understanding of economics and business, especially tariffs, not even after the host, John Micklethwait, patiently explained how they do and don’t work. Trump drifted away from the topic repeatedly. He showed repeated annoyance when Micklethwait steered him back. At least once, he seemed to realize he was humiliating himself and covered it up.

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He’s taking what is a growing mental deficit and making it seem like it’s a mental asset. He’s even given it a name – “the weave.”

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At one point, after Micklethwait interrupted one of his reveries, Trump scolded him for “moving too quickly.” Trump said, “You gotta be able to finish a thought, because it’s very important. This is big stuff. You can’t go that quickly.” Micklethwait said, “you’ve gone from the dollar to [French President] Macron.” Trump said, “I’m just telling you basic … It’s called ‘the weave’ … it’s all these different things happening.”

Trump is putting everything he has into putting one word in front of another, though the effort is taking him places he does not intend to go. He gets frustrated when the people he’s talking to “interrupt” him when they bring him back on subject. These “interruptions” make him forget his train of thought and that makes him struggle even more. 

Trump is also taking what is a growing mental deficit and making it seem like it’s a mental asset. He’s even given it a name – “the weave.” In reality, the weave is what happens when an aging brain flits from topic to topic without any apparent reason for doing so. Trump, however, wants us to believe that cognitive decline is extraordinary. 

Early last month, at a rally in Pennsylvania, he explained that “the weave” is talking about “nine different things and they all come back brilliantly together. And friends of mine who are, like, English professors, they say: ‘That’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen!’”

Trump must have been getting worried about Micklethwait’s “interruptions,” because the weave came back around for a second appearance during today’s disastrous interview. After a lengthy digression about tariffs and steel and “World War III,” etc., Trump paused, as if he had to explain why he had been digressing. “And by the way, and I think it’s very important, I call it the weave. … You have the weave as long as you end up in the right location at the end.” 

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The weave is important – to him. It might be the most important thing at this point in his campaign. If voters do not see ordinary dementia as an amazing rhetorical tactic that impresses the likes of English professors, they might see it as, well, ordinary dementia. They might see Trump in an ordinary human light. That’s death to the strongman.  

Trump knows what’s happening to him. He’s aware that something is wrong, that he’s not well. We know this is true, not only because he rambles, not only because he can’t answer simple questions, but because he keeps bringing it up. He’s given his disability a name! He used it twice today, using almost the same language in each instance. And Trump brought up, as he has frequently over the last year, the time when he “aced” a pair of tests designed to detect dementia. 

But the most obvious evidence that he’s aware of his cognitive decline is the fact that he accuses Kamala Harris, a woman 20 years younger, of having cognitive decline. After another long exposition, he said, “I don’t think she could pass a cognitive test.” In accusing her of what’s happening to him, he’s hoping no one notices what’s happening to him. 

It’s in the projection that we see the admission of the truth. 

Trump’s frustration boiled over at one point. Micklethwait broke into yet another of his divagations and insisted on facts. He said tariffs on the scale Trump proposes would cost trillions and his plan would run up enormous debt. Micklethwait went on to say that even the Wall Street Journal, “hardly a communist organization,” has criticized him.

Trump crossed his arms. 

Then he snapped back: “What does the Wall Street Journal know. They’ve been wrong about everything. So have you, by the way.” 

Trump’s deteriorating mental health hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves, but it is now. The Harris campaign is insisting on it. Over the weekend, Harris told a reporter that the public should “be the decision-maker on his [mental] acuity. You will see in his rallies how he goes off on tangents, how he is not focused on the needs of the American people with solutions to the issues that concern them.”

Later, at a rally, she said he’s “not being transparent with the voters. He refuses to release his medical records. … Every other presidential candidate in the modern era has done it. He is unwilling to do a “60 Minutes” interview, like every other major party candidate has done for more than half a century. He is unwilling to meet for a second debate. … Why does his staff want him to hide away? … Are they afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead America?” 

Then last night, at another rally, and after enumerating the ways that Trump is a danger to democracy and freedom, Harris put all those fascist tendencies in the context of his deteriorating mental health. 

“He is saying he would use the military to go after [his enemies]. … We know who he would target, because he has attacked them before: journalists whose stories he doesn’t like, election officials who refuse to cheat …, judges who insist on following the law instead of bending to his will. This is among the reasons why I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America and dangerous.”

Her conclusion landed with a thunderclap.

“Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged.”