Krugman: Trump’s Unnerving Mental Breakdown Signals Nation in Decline

Donald Trump’s war with Iran is making it clear this presidency could have much worse long-term consequences than we expected. Yet Trump is spending his nights indulging his crazed obsessions. In one early-morning tirade, he raged about “fools” who criticize his Iran fiasco, calling them “bad people” and “stupid.” In another, he fulminated at length about his ballroom. He’s posting updates on the gilding of statues and images of himself on international magazine covers. The gap between the gravity of the moment on one side and his trivial megalomania on the other is jarring. We talked to economist Paul Krugman, who has been writing really well on his Substack about both sides of this divide. He goes big-picture, detailing the signs that we’re a country in decline, why other countries are looking toward a post-American world, and why it’s shocking that we put up with his worsening megalomania and nonstop desecration of our republic. Listen to this episode here.