Democratic strategist James Carville says President Donald Trump has effectively stopped doing the job, arguing on a new episode of “Politics War Room,” his podcast on the Politicon network, that the 80-year-old is visibly slipping.
“The guy doesn’t want to do the job anymore. He’s just on autopilot,” Carville said. “He is not right right now. He’s deteriorating,” he added, and: “I think the man is in his final convulsions.”
It is not the first time the veteran operative has questioned the president’s condition. In a June 2 interview on MS NOW, days after Trump’s third physical in about 13 months, Carville said something about the frequency of the president’s medical visits was “just not adding up” and predicted the public would eventually learn why.
Aides Describe a Short Fuse
Inside the West Wing, the picture is not much rosier. White House insiders have described a president whose moods swing sharply and who is increasingly quick to anger. Advisers describe him as generally in a good mood, Axios reported, though some privately say he can get too cranky too quickly and is showing his 80 years. In July 2026, aides described him to The New York Times as even more “erratic” than usual. His difficulty in finding a face-saving exit from the conflict with Iran has reportedly deepened that frustration, making him more prone to abrupt reversals.
The irritants keep piling up. The Federal Reserve under Trump’s hand-picked chair, Kevin Warsh, raised the benchmark interest rate on Sept. 16 despite Trump’s repeated demands for rates of 1 percent or lower. The Supreme Court blocked his attempt to impose new restrictions on mail-in ballots, and a federal judge again barred the Kennedy Center from putting his name on the building. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., broke with him in a campaign ad to warn that some immigration enforcement efforts have “gone too far,” saying Hispanic voters who helped elect him “feel betrayed.” Gasoline averages about $4.48 a gallon, roughly $1.34 more than a year earlier, according to AAA, and diesel has hit a record high amid the energy squeeze. The midterms are now 36 days away.
Legacy Mode as Midterms Near
White House insiders told The Wall Street Journal that the president is more absorbed in how history will judge him than in fixing the economy or ending his war with Iran. A senior administration official told the paper Trump has entered “legacy mode,” and aides say he fears being lumped in with past occupants of the White House he considers weak, such as Jimmy Carter. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a confidant of the president, told the Journal that Trump is “one of the handful of presidents who thinks on an entirely historic scale.”
That focus grates on Republicans who want him spending his time — and the $400 million his super PAC has banked — defending slim majorities in the House and Senate. In August, aides told CNN he had little appetite for crisscrossing the country on behalf of vulnerable candidates. Instead, on Sept. 9, he convened an unprecedented midterm convention in Dallas, where candidates were expected to come to him. There, he pledged to hand every adult citizen $5,000 if Republicans keep control of both chambers, a plan estimated to cost about $1.2 trillion.
Multiple polls put his approval rating well below 40 percent, with some as low as 29 percent, as support for his handling of the economy fades and disdain for the Iran war grows. Michigan GOP strategist Jason Roe told Politico that the political environment is bad and that the elections amount to a referendum on the government Trump heads. Polling suggests Republicans could lose the House and possibly the Senate.
The White House Hits Back
White House spokesman Davis Ingle has pushed back forcefully, dismissing scrutiny of the president’s condition as “baseless conspiracy theories” driven by what he called “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Doubts about the president’s health have trailed his second term from the start, fueled by social media tirades, rambling speeches and frequent blowups at reporters, along with physical warning signs — instances in which he has appeared to fall asleep, walked unsteadily or displayed prominent bruising on the backs of his hands. Trump has said he closed his eyes during a Cabinet meeting because it got “pretty boring,” not because he was sleeping.
Trump and his doctors insist he is in peak physical fitness. His personal physician, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, wrote in a memorandum released in late May that the president “remains in excellent health, demonstrating strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and overall physical function.”