Today’s episode of The Weekend on MS NOW devoted a segment to questioning Donald Trump’s “mental acuity.”
Leading the charge was Jonathan Capehart, who declared that more people should be talking about it “in the way they were giving President Biden hell for walking with a stiff gait.”
It wasn't just a stiff gait, Jonathan, and if anyone should know that, it's you. Interviewing Biden in 2022, Capehart watched him appear to zone out mid-conversation and had to call him back with “Mr. President?”
Capehart edited out that awkward moment in the version of the interview he later aired on his own show. Talk about a double-standard dose of chutzpah.
Capehart cited three recent Trump comments as evidence of cognitive trouble: that Canada is a state, that the Strait of Hormuz is U.S. territory, and that the military could ultimately be used to intervene in the bond market. Granted, the last one was a tad perplexing.
Capehart mischaracterized the remark about Canada. Trump did not say that Canada is a state. He said Canada wants the benefits of being a state [without being one.] The distinction matters when the charge is that the president is detached from reality.
Eugene Daniels offered a creative explanation for why the press supposedly isn’t focused enough on Trump’s mental state. There are so many scandals in this administration, he argued, that the acuity question “just doesn’t register.” By contrast, he claimed, the Biden years had fewer scandals, so the press had more bandwidth to dwell on Biden’s condition.
That is inverted history. Large parts of the mainstream media spent years downplaying and denying Biden’s obvious decline. When the Wall Street Journal finally published a serious examination of Biden's "slipping" just days before the debate that forced him out, other outlets attacked the Journal for its reporting. Daniels is rewriting the media’s own record.
Chutzpah! The Network That Brought You ‘Sharp As A Tack, Best Biden Ever’ Now Frets Trump’s Mental Acuity!@CapehartJ @TheWeekendMSNOW pic.twitter.com/dStDmDNiXD
— Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) August 23, 2026
Jackie Alemany came closest to an honest assessment. She noted that Trump has a long history of unusual tangents, middle-of-the-night musings, and odd policy ideas. In other words, this is a pattern, not sudden evidence of collapse.
The panel’s sudden concern would carry more weight if the same voices had shown similar urgency when Biden was the one struggling. Instead, they minimized, edited, and attacked those who noticed.
Now the same network that brought you Eugene Robinson’s “sharp as a tack” Biden, and Joe Scarborough’s “best Biden ever — and f-you if you don’t believe it” is outraged that more attention isn't being paid to Trump's supposed decline.
Hypocrisy, thy name is MS NOW.
Here's the transcript.
MS NOW
The Weekend
8/23/26
7:07 am EDT
JONATHAN CAPEHART: I don't know if you heard me loudly snort during Jackie’s intro, when she read the social media post from the president when he said- what was that thing where he said, you know, Canada wants the ben—” There it is! “Canada wants the benefits of being a state.”
And I snorted --
EUGENE DANIELS: You laughed --
CAPEHART: -- and snorted. I laughed and snorted. And, and I snorted because this is, to Eugene’s point about the president creating his own reality, so he’s now back on his jag of Canada is a state.
This comes on top of him over the last few, couple weeks now, talking about the Strait of Hormuz being a quote US territory. And this comes, also, what was this? A couple days ago. We don’t have it here, but we’re gonna have it later on. When he was asked about the bond markets, and is he gonna ask Secretary -- oh, we have it. Where is it? Let’s play it. Let, let’s play it. This is, this is about the bond markets. You gotta hear this. Dana, watch this.
REPORTER: Did you direct Secretary Bessent to intervene in the bond market with your idea?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, not at all. No, he’s a very capable man. He wanted to do it. He’s very good at it. He has a good touch, very good natural touch for the bonds and interest, and he did that. We have many types of intervention, that’s one. The ultimate intervention is our military, and if we have to use that, we will.
CAPEHART: Dana!
DANA MILBANK: Yes.
CAPEHART: So use the military on the bond -— That’s not a thing. But I, I bring all of this up. Strait of Hormuz, Canada, let’s send in the military for the bond markets. We should be talking about this man’s mental acuity. We just, I just gave three examples from just the last couple of weeks, and there are multitudes more. Why are we not talking about his mental acuity when we, when we—
MILBANK: Right now we are.
CAPEHART: Well, we are, but more people should be talking about it in the way they were giving President Biden hell for walking with a stiff gait.
. . .
DANIELS: I wanna go back to the mental acuity thing, ’cause I have started to think that the reason that people aren’t talking about it, and Jackie, you’re always at the White House. I think there’s so many scandals happening around this White House and this administration, like on the list of things, like it just doesn’t register.
And when you had the Biden years, there weren’t that many scandals. And so it is something that was much more like you would, you would, you would, you would put a printer ink to it, right? Like you would, you would send a reporter to, to go and, and think about it a lot more.
And I think now, I mean, two point two billion dollars in a year that he made from all different types of investments. He’s on the, he’s on the lawn saying that, the [Scotts Miracle Gro] people gave me this lawn. Oh, also, they gave money to my campaign, right? There’s so many things over and over and over again that’s questionable. Maybe I'm wrong, Jackie, but in my head, that's how I think it works.
JACKIE ALEMANY: Well, whenever we’ve gotten into this debate on the show, the thing that I’ve always come back to is, I think White House reporters don’t talk about it as much because he’s always had these --
DANIELS: Weird ideas?
ALEMANY: -- strange tangents that don’t make any sense, and middle of the night musings, and nonsensical policy ideas. Are they getting more far fetched and more nonsensical. Perhaps?
CAPEHART: Well, I guess my, my, my, why I get so enraged by this is, why is he being given a pass? He’s President of the United States! No other president, just one of those things, no other president would be able to survive.
