President Donald Trump appears to be in the midst of a "slow decline" that could end with a surprising figure ascending to power, according to one expert.

Questions have swirled about the president's health throughout his second administration. He's been spotted with bruising on his hands on several occasions, and has been photographed with swollen ankles, which some experts have said are signs of a heart condition. Trump's mental health has also been called into question as the president has admitted to taking multiple cognitive exams.

David Rothkopf, global affairs columnist for The Daily Beast, argued during a new episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast" with host Joanna Coles that Trump's decline could end with Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff, gaining power rather than Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as many have predicted.

“Power flows from the president, from the people closest to the president, from the people who control his schedule, from the people who send out his statements,” Rothkopf said, noting that Vance has been conspicuously absent during many such events.

Rothkopf also noted that there are historical precedents for a president handing off their duties to aides. He pointed to former President Dwight Eisenhower's heart attacks and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's heart condition.

“And I’ve got to tell you, you look at Donald Trump, you look at the bruises, you look at his behavior, you look at his age, you look at his family history, and we could be heading for one of these periods where somebody other than Trump is actually, behind the scenes, the acting president," Rothkopf said.

President Donald Trump's obsession with Greenland has inspired a new harebrained business venture, Rachel Maddow told her viewers on MS NOW Monday night — and it already appears to be falling apart.

But before that, she said with some bemusement, the venture actually tried to get her to promote it.

Several weeks ago, she said, her office got "a totally unsolicited, totally over-the-top PR pitch offering me an embargoed, confidential sneak peek at a new project from Dr. Phil," announcing he was going to Greenland to do a TV show and asking if she'd be interested in covering it.

The "footage" they offered Maddow continued, "turned out to be footage in Greenland of an American guy talking about his plans to drill for oil in Greenland, which he apparently believed he had a right to do." She put the video on.

"That's why we're here, to reposition the road-building equipment," said a man in the clip, adding that "for a fact" they have all the authorizations to move forward with the work.

"The guy they're explaining this to appears to say, 'This is unlawful,'" Maddow noted. "It's kind of hard to hear, but it sounds like that's what he says."

Nonetheless, "some PR firm, in its infinite wisdom, believed that I would find it an exciting opportunity to help promote a new Dr. Phil TV show about how exciting it would be to drill for oil in Greenland."

Since that PR pitch, she said, things haven't gone so well for this enterprise.

"First of all, you should know that in 2021, Greenland passed a national moratorium, a national ban on all future oil exploration," said Maddow.

Despite this, once Trump resumed his public obsession with annexing Greenland, "for some reason, a new company formed in Texas called Greenland Energy," who "said they were going to drill for oil in Greenland."

Then, in June, they visited a remote part of Eastern Greenland with no roads, and "announced to the villagers there that this company, this Texas company, had permission ... to start bringing their equipment, their oil drilling equipment to this untouched Arctic area of Greenland."

Sadly for them, said Maddow, "the company later apologized and said, actually, they didn't have permits to do that. They put out a statement sort of correcting the record, saying, quote, our enthusiasm for the project led us to communicate in a way that created confusion."

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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is using the state's massive public pension fund as leverage to dig through The New York Times' internal editorial decisions — the latest in his string of shareholder-based attacks on companies he politically opposes.

Uthmeier fired off a 28-page demand letter Monday, giving the Times two weeks to hand over records on how its board oversees editorial decisions, arguing the paper's coverage choices expose shareholders — including Florida retirees — to costly legal risk, reported Politico.

"Editorial malpractice does not always kill a media enterprise. But it always sends a bill," Uthmeier warned.

The Florida Retirement System, one of the country's largest public pension systems with more than 1.2 million members, owns roughly 160,000 shares of Times stock, according to Uthmeier's office. He specifically zeroed in on a controversial May opinion column by Nicholas Kristof accusing Israel of using dogs to perform unspeakable acts against Palestinian prisoners — a piece that prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to threaten a defamation lawsuit against the paper. Uthmeier also demanded records tied to the Times' June coverage of misconduct allegations against former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.

The Times pushed back hard. "We are aware of the demand letter, which, while positioned as a request under corporate law, is a clear attempt to chill First Amendment-protected journalism," spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha said.

It's not Uthmeier's first rodeo using this playbook. As Gov. Ron DeSantis' handpicked attorney general, he's previously gone after companies like Target using nearly identical shareholder-risk arguments over their LGBTQ marketing decisions.

This week, he also involved himself in a WNBA basketball game taking place 1,300 miles away from his state, ranting that a foul against MAGA-beloved Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham could have been charged as assault if it took place in his jurisdiction.