Trump proved he's in the midst of a 'dangerous deterioration': national security expert

A prominent Atlantic writer is sounding the alarm about President Donald Trump's mental state after the president spent a weekend attacking the pope, posting an AI image of himself as Jesus Christ, and rage-posting on Truth Social until nearly dawn.

Tom Nichols, a professor emeritus of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and conservative Trump critic, wrote Monday that Trump's erratic behavior is no longer just an idiosyncrasy, it's a national security crisis.

"This is not the behavior of a stable, healthy leader," Nichols wrote.

Nichols catalogued Trump's Sunday night in alarming detail: a 300-word screed against Pope Leo XIV at 9 p.m., followed by the Jesus image 45 minutes later, a Trump Tower on the moon five minutes after that, and a cascade of Newsmax clips and recycled posts stretching past 4 a.m., including one Biden story posted twice within minutes.

At 12:43 a.m., almost as an afterthought, Trump announced the U.S. Navy would blockade Iranian ports in the morning.

Nichols tied the meltdown to a string of compounding failures: a stalled Iran war, plummeting approval ratings, a cratering economy, and the electoral defeat of Trump ally Viktor Orbán in Hungary.

"No one can say for sure what is causing the president’s bizarre behavior," Nichols wrote, but warned that Americans "must not shrug off" the commander in chief's implosion.

"If an elderly parent did such things, most people would be concerned. The president doing such things is far more alarming," wrote Nichols.

He concluded: "The American people must not look away, as they have done so often in the past. They must pay attention to the president’s deterioration, and insist that the House and Senate start acting like functioning branches of the government by asking the White House to explain what is happening, without insults or evasions, before the eyes of the country and the world."