Here's why Trump is showing more 'mental strain' in public than ever before: WaPo columnist

President Donald Trump has shown more "mental strain" in public than ever before — and as one Washington Post columnist noted, there appear to be multiple reasons for it.

Plum Line columnist Greg Sargent noted Wednesday that as Trump travels to Ohio for the first time "since the GOP’s 2018 bloodbath," matters in the state are "plainly nagging" at him.

"The closing of a GM plant in Lordstown is one of the things that prompted the barrage of bizarre tweets that inspired all the veiled hints that Trump is feeling more unsettled than usual," Sargent wrote.

During his rage-tweets about the closing plant on Monday, Trump claimed such a closure shouldn't happen "in one of the greatest economies in our history. As the columnist noted, that "boast undermines itself" and begs the question: "If this is such a great economy, why should one plant closing matter politically?"

Trump, Sargent mused, "made it matter" by bragging about reversing the closures of plants.

As new reports suggest the president is considering imposing auto import tariffs (which some advisers say he can justify under the guise of national security), aides and experts warn that doing so would alienate his allies and potentially throw Ohio into a recession.

The columnist noted that Trump's "imaginary wall," which he keeps bolstering by talking and tweeting about in spite of it not being built yet, is yet another metric by which he judges his presidency — and yet another he appears to be failing at.

Finally, team Trump's "false bravado" in the face of multiple investigations could be straining him and explain his "unusually unsettled state."

Read the entire column via the Post's Plum Line blog.