Written by Matthew Parris in THE TIMES
Monday April 20 2026,
To say someone has lost his mind can carry a range of meanings. Accusations of mental instability may be merely a kind of insult, bandied around cheaply in politics, and not a serious diagnosis.
But when I say the president of the United States is insane I must make clear that this is not meant as playground abuse. I mean Donald Trump is mentally ill; that he is of unsound mind; that he is suffering from substantial cognitive decline. I mean that were he in any lesser office than the American presidency, urgent discussions would be taking place among colleagues about his mental fitness for the post.
Imagine he worked in a bank. Or as a British Airways pilot. Or as your local solicitor or GP. In none of these roles would he be allowed to keep working.
Among this president’s fellow leaders, there cannot be a friend or foe of the United States who would dare publicly acknowledge that the leader of the free world has lost his wits. Nor a single one who would privately deny it. I’ve been writing as much for more than a year, and with every month it becomes more urgent to repeat it. As we speak, he has plunged half a continent into murderous chaos and the world peers into the abyss of economic collapse.
An early and critical sign that somebody is of unsound mind is when they begin to act, react or communicate in ways that even at the most obvious level are not in their own interest. Lashing out in personal terms at the Pope, for example, if you lead a country with a huge Catholic population; in one breath declaring that another country’s nuclear capability has been destroyed, and in another declaring that it represents an immediate threat. Or posting on your Truth Social account an image of yourself in red and white robes with light shining from your hands healing the afflicted, with a fighter jet and American symbols in the background.
“Gaga” is a cruel word for a cruel affliction and age-related cognitive decline comes in many forms. If you are like ex-President Biden, you stumble gently around, falling over and forgetting things. If you’re his successor (or King Lear), your energy never flags and you start letting fly in all directions, contradicting yourself, firing people, promising the impossible and asserting the implausible, swinging wildly between aggression and self-pity.
The president has surrounded himself with a ragtag platoon of close collaborators who must see his derangement all too clearly but, should he fall, must fall with him, and so stay silent. Under the 25th amendment to the US constitution, his vice-president and cabinet could declare his incapacity for office. But they will not. Like those surrounding Joe Biden, they know the truth but say nothing.
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There was a time when the most obvious explanation for this president’s otherwise inexplicable behaviour — that he was losing his wits — felt too shocking to contemplate. So commentators stroked their beards and devised theories, such as that he was a dealmaker who opened with a preposterous bid (seize Greenland) then negotiated down. Or that he was a genius for generating content on social media and so dominating the news. Or the “madman theory” — power through pretending to be mad. That the occupant of the White House was not pretending was still too terrible a leap for our imagination. It is no longer too terrible. The president has lost his mind and must be removed. This cannot happen until he begins losing the confidence of his own Republican Party. Then, after November’s midterm elections, a possibility may open up: impeachment.
Only the House of Representatives can start the process, by simple majority vote. The trial, however, is conducted in the Senate and for it to succeed a two-thirds majority of senators is required.
“Unfitness for office” is not among the named grounds for the impeachment of a president but “high crimes and misdemeanours” is, and the truth is that if the requisite majorities in both houses of Congress want to remove a president, the necessary misconduct will be found; so impeachment is more like our Commons “confidence” motions than a criminal trial.
And the further truth is that if the required Senate majority is to be obtained, a schism in this president’s party must open up. Twice impeached in his first term (the word refers to the process, not the verdict), Trump survived because Republican senators stuck together. In any future impeachment they will have to weigh up whether their party’s chances will be enhanced at the next presidential election, in 2028, by removing the incumbent now.
In a 100-member Senate, not many Republicans need to rebel for a two-thirds majority for convicting the president to be found; but it will have to be more than a few rogue senators. Even after the midterms the Republican bloc will remain substantial. The party would need a proper schism, a concerted movement by a discernible team, for the president’s internal party authority to be challenged. It may never happen, but if it does, then — believe me — we shall all be saying it was only ever a matter of time.
When a president is removed, his vice-president automatically succeeds to the role. So (assuming he aims to run for the presidency) JD Vance will have to make some difficult calculations if Trump hits serious turbulence this autumn. Take his chances by Trump’s side, or detach himself early?
I find Vance interesting. I hated his behaving towards President Zelensky like a bully’s sidekick. I find his forays into ethical philosophy deeply impressive: his argument about concentric circles of moral obligation is the missing paragraph Christ never supplied but which Christianity needs. Like all of us, he’s probably confused; but in intellectual reach he goes fathoms deeper than his president. It’s only a hunch, but mine is that Vance’s name will soon be surfacing quite often.
He will duck, and the more he ducks the more he will be noticed. Yet duck he must. Can and will Trump be successfully impeached? If he can, and is, Vance will become president for two years. Would that be a good footing for a run in 2028? Or would he do better to define himself properly, and soon, against a failing president?
Those who grasp a truth before its appointed arrival in political history must face hilarity, but we do not care: we know that in time everyone will be saying that evidence of Donald Trump’s personal disintegration was visible from the start. I say it now.
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