Trump, 79, Wanders Off While Meeting Japanese Prime Minister

During a welcoming ceremony in Tokyo Tuesday, Donald Trump appeared to forget where he was going as he walked through a room filled with dignitaries and a military band, at one point even leaving Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi behind.

It’s another example of the president’s ongoing cognitive decline and health issues, which are becoming more apparent with each of his public appearances. On Monday, the president revealed on Air Force One that a visit to Walter Reed Medical Center earlier this month was to get an MRI as part of what he described as a “routine yearly checkup,” despite the fact that his yearly physical exam was six months ago.

Neither the president nor White House officials have revealed why he got the MRI, and Trump also talked at length about a very hard “aptitude test” he received at the military hospital, claiming that members of Congress such as Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett wouldn’t have performed well.

Trump said the tests at the time included questions about “tigers, an elephant, a giraffe,” which sounds like he took a test to check for Alzheimer’s, dementia, or other cognitive issues. Such tests being conducted only six months after his yearly physical are a worrying sign, especially considering that Trump has also been spotted with discoloration on his hands and mysterious bruises.

Trump is visiting Japan hoping to shore up Japanese investment in the United States, just after the country elected the right-wing Takaichi as its first female prime minister. But aside from the U.S. economy’s health, the president’s health appears to be cause for concern.

Donald Trump has let thousands of criminals off the hook, so why not himself?

The president is pushing to appeal his criminal conviction in New York in an effort to undo his status as a convicted felon, reported Politico.

In a 96-page legal brief filed to the New York Supreme Court Monday, Trump once again argued that the outcome of the trial should be completely disregarded since the Supreme Court expanded the scope of presidential immunity.

“This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction,” his attorneys wrote.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 after a high-profile trial found him guilty of issuing hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, but he never faced consequences. He wasn’t scheduled to be sentenced until after the presidential election, the outcome of which effectively undid any chance of holding him accountable.

Instead, Justice Juan Merchan let Trump off in January with “unconditional discharge,” which he wrote at the time had become “the most viable solution” for Trump. As a result, Trump received a future in which he would not be hampered down with fines, court-appointed supervision, or incarceration for breaking the law.

Trump has tried several times to unravel his conviction. He was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He will remain a felon until an appellate court overturns his case, an act that he and his attorneys have already tried a handful of times to achieve without success.

In the legal brief, Trump’s team argued that the Supreme Court’s decision should have precluded prosecutors from utilizing evidence tied to Trump’s “official acts,” such as testimony about communications between Trump and Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director.

President Donald Trump went on to troops about making old-fashioned battleships.

Speaking on the USS George Washington Monday night at the Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan, Trump went on a bewildering diatribe pushing the use of steam for catapults onboard warships, instead of the electronic or magnetic machinery used to launch planes on the USS Garland R. Ford class of Navy carriers.

“And I love the sight of that beautiful steam pouring off the deck,” Trump said. “With the electric you don’t have that.”

“They spent $993,000,000 dollars on the catapults trying to get them to work. And they had steam which worked so beautifully, and it has for 50 years, right? So, we’re gonna go back. Seriously fellas, I wanna make that change. I’m gonna do an executive order,” Trump said. “They’re trying to make it work, they’re trying so hard, and they have something that’s perfect. So we’re gonna go back on that, and the magnets.”

The USS Gerald R. Ford actually cost roughly $13 billion to make, and while the production of the ship was delayed and experienced cost overruns, it’s not entirely clear why Trump has decided that the magnets on these ships don’t work. Meanwhile, the maintenance on steam catapults is considered labor intensive and costly, compared to newer models.

Trump has previously claimed the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System doesn’t work, though there is no evidence that this is true. In January 2024, Trump baselessly claimed that magnets stop working when placed in water, and therefore were a stupid thing to put on a boat.

Trump has said he wants a new “Golden Fleet” of warships. Shipping experts have said Trump’s dream of revamping the U.S. Navy to fit his aesthetic whims will likely cost billions of dollars—others say it is destined to fail.

Online retail giant Amazon plans to slash as many as 30,000 corporate jobs Tuesday, which would be the biggest number of layoffs at the company in three years. 

Reuters reports that the cuts would amount to 10 percent of the company’s close to 350,000 corporate employees, and would be across different departments. The last time Amazon cut this many jobs was 2022, when 27,000 were slashed late in the year. The move follows Amazon CEO Andy Jassy saying in June that AI tools would lead to job cuts. 

It’s not a good indicator for the economy under President Trump. The website Layoffs.fyi, which tracks job cuts, estimates that 98,344 technology employees have been laid off this year from 216 companies.  The site also estimates that 71,981 government employees have been laid off by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, out of a total of 182,528 federal employees departing from the jobs. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs report last month showed unemployment at a four-year high, with only 22,000 jobs added in August (compared to a forecast of 75,000). Thanks to the government shutdown, job and unemployment figures from September aren’t known, but they are likely pretty bad. ADP, which processes payrolls, reported earlier this month that the private sector lost 32,000 jobs in September. 

While the shutdown hides an official tally of how bad employment numbers are in America right now, Amazon’s impending layoffs, and estimates from other sources, indicate that the economy isn’t very strong right now—and the buck stops with the president. 

California will send election observers to counter the “election monitors” that Trump plans on sending to multiple deep blue districts in the state ahead of next week’s special election.

“They’re not going to be allowed to interfere in ways that the law prohibits,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Monday. “We cannot be naïve. The Republican Party asked for the U.S. DOJ to come in.”

“[Trump] is laying the groundwork. He is socializing an idea that is very dangerous,” Bonta added, noting that Trump still claims to have won the 2020 presidential election. “All indications, all arrows show that this is a tee up for something more dangerous in the 2026 midterms—and maybe beyond.”

Trump’s Justice Department last week announced it would send federal election monitors to several blue districts in California and New Jersey. In California, the Trump administration is likely well aware of Proposition 50, a ballot measure that would redraw the state’s congressional districts to help Democrats gain more seats in the U.S. House.

Trump’s DOJ monitoring a crucial election in California is a recipe for basic voting rights to be blatantly violated. Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday called it a “deliberate attempt to scare off voters and undermine a fair election.”

“They have no business doing that. They have no basis to do that,” he said in a video posted on X. “We have a statewide election for a statewide constitution. This is about voter intimidation, this is about voter suppression. Period, full stop.”