Donald Trump is being "manipulated by underlings," according to a political analyst who says his Cabinet can sense a "decline".
The president's health has come under scrutiny yet again, with both cognitive and physical worries aired by political commentators. Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte believes these suggestions of ill health are emboldening members of the Trump administration to act on their own accord, and that the president is too weak to stop them.
Writing in her Substack, Marcotte suggested, "There are increasing signs that the 79-year-old president is being manipulated by underlings exploiting his evident decline. He was clearly tricked — probably by Stephen Miller — by an obviously fake photo showing Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s hand emblazoned with gang tattoos."
"There’s been excellent reporting suggesting that Trump’s information sources are tightly controlled by people who would think nothing of lying to a dementia patient in order to get their way. It’s more than likely that people like Marco Rubio have simply made stuff up to get Trump to back this Venezuelan invasion."
Rubio, should he have coaxed Trump into the Venezuela strike, could feel it is "justified payback," according to Marcotte.
She continued, "Trump did all of this to himself by being such an a-- to people that they can’t wait to screw him over. If Rubio is lying to him, the secretary of state may feel this is justified payback for years of being called 'Little Marco.'”
"But it is concerning that an already-idiotic president is getting even dimmer," she went on. Rubio has also received criticism from Democratic Party representatives for his part in the Venezuela strikes and capture of President Nicolás Maduro.Senator
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) called the strike a "constitutional crisis." Speaking to NOTUS, Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) suggested a "Dear Leader syndrome" had spread through the White House.
Booker said, "We’re in a constitutional crisis, in my opinion. And it’s something that Marco, when he was in the Senate, wouldn’t have stood for."
Rubio said of the strikes, "This was not an action that required congressional approval. In fact, it couldn’t require congressional approval because this was not an invasion. This is not an extended military operation."
"This is a very precise operation that involved a couple of hours of action. It was a very delicate operation, too. It was one that required all these conditions to be in place at the right time, in the right place."