On Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone discusses mainstream media ignoring Donald Trump’s mental capacity
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From the April 24, 2026, edition of MS NOW's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): I think that the 'why this matters' to the democratic experiment, and the MAGA moment, and Trump's capacity to lay his hands on whatever happens next is because all Trump was, really -- in his most powerful form, was a brand that he brilliantly cultivated and marketed. And that brand had, I think, two central tenants. One, you know, sort of, screw the elites and the system, you know, I'm going to help you get back at all the people that screwed you. And two, vigor. And it was toxic, masculine vigor and that was the synergy with the manosphere. It was tireless work on behalf of the people who signed up for the first thing, you know, to get back to the people that screwed him. It made the Twitter presidency successful, right, to the degree that his people nominated him two more times.
Without vigor, it all just looks like he's crazy. And poll, after poll, after poll bears that out. Reuters-Ipsos, how has Trump's mental sharpness changed over the past year? 51% think it's gotten worse. 40 said it stayed the same, so no one thinks it got better. Americans who say Trump's mental sharpness has gotten worse among independents, 54%. Among all adults, 51%. The, you know, intellectual honesty isn't really a thing. We sort of live in a post-intellectual honesty moment. But not for nothing, here's Harris Faulkner covering Joe Biden's age.
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I peeked over at Fox a little bit. I did not monitor it all day long, but I didn't see this story covered there.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): No, I mean, they're not really talking about it, right? Because exactly the point you made, which is that they're not going to talk about it not only because they don't want to upset him, of course, but because it so deeply cuts against the core narrative and the brand that he's built for himself that they've been a part of creating. And, you know, there's sort of two dimensions of this story. It's not a cheap shot against the president. I know that's like what the online chatter will largely be, and it's really easy, and I understand the irresistible temptation to say, oh, you made fun of Biden's age, and so now we get to make fun of yours sort of falling asleep.
But it's actually, as you noted, significantly more serious than that for two components. One is, as you started with, what's going on here? It is different to some extent than his first presidency. He averaged about seven or eight posts a day during his first term. He's, you know, somewhere between 18 and 20 during his second term. He's doing this a lot more, and the substance of those posts are AI generated images and random asides. So, it's not only that he's doing more of these types of activities throughout all hours of the night, but the content has gotten weirder. I mean, let's not forget that it just a few months ago in December, where in a span of five hours, he did a 160 posts in rapid succession. Like, that's not normal. There's something off about that. So one is, what's going on with him?
And then the tie in, which I think is the really big part of this, is how is this being covered and talked about? Because there actually is a problem. You know, it's not just Fox News and the right-wing media that's not dealing with this well. The rest of the news media isn't. You know, the New York Times -- UPenn did a study on this -- covered Biden's age 11 times more than they covered Project 2025, the New York Times. Or, if you look -- Media Matters did a big analysis of the top five newspapers in the country and how they covered Biden's -- compared Biden's and Trump's age. They did 10 times more discussion about Biden's age and acuity than they did Trump's. So, they clearly have the skills to ask these questions, but, yet, they're not doing it now across the board.
And, so, those numbers, when you talk about Trump's poll numbers, that's without actually having even the types of coverage that this deserves, and it does. It's not just, you know, the hypocrisy angle. There's legitimate open questions that the media hasn't pulled in on. So, you know, there are still those mysterious MRIs that he got last year that there's no understanding about. Some of the other health concerns that were raised where the answers don't seem to add up. You don't have to be conspiratorial to actually do journalism and say, wait a minute, we do need to talk about this because the connection does show what those two pieces are related.
He's doing something different than he did the first term. There is a change there. He's doing more of this. He's spending more time in these random post storms. And then the second part is that the rest of the news media isn't doing the work that they typically or shown their ability to do to press and get an understanding of this. So, it is a big story to a degree because this guy is the president, and we shouldn't lose sight of that. But it's also a story about how the rest of the news media is dealing with it, and that's how he's able to even limp along with his brand as he is.