Donald Trump’s latest Oval Office press conference was less a presidential address and more a live-action episode of American Horror Story. Looking pale, incoherent, and with a right hand taking on a shade normally reserved for Smurfs and corpses, the former president attempted to project strength. Instead, he looked like a cross between a malfunctioning wax figure and a B-list zombie extra.
The spectacle began with Trump addressing viral rumors that he had, in fact, died over the weekend. “No, really? I didn’t see that,” he insisted, offering a denial so weak it felt more like a séance than a press briefing. Rather than project authority, Trump resembled a ghost confused about why people were still speaking to him.
Next came the viral video of what appeared to be White House staff hurling trash bags out of an upstairs window. Instead of a rational explanation, Trump reached for a new scapegoat: artificial intelligence. “That’s probably AI-generated,” he said, as though Siri had suddenly joined the custodial team. In fact, Trump went further, declaring that whenever “something really bad happens,” people should “just blame AI.” In other words, the man who once blamed windmills for cancer now wants to outsource all his scandals to ChatGPT.
World affairs did not fare any better under Trump’s spin cycle. When asked about Russia jamming the GPS of a European Union leader’s plane—a move widely seen as an assassination attempt—Trump’s response was breathtakingly cavalier. Losing navigation and communications, he claimed, “can be a good thing.” Apparently, in Trump’s worldview, Kremlin aggression is just a quirky inconvenience, like spotty Wi-Fi at Mar-a-Lago.
Pressed on China’s growing military alignment with Putin and Kim Jong-un, Trump shrugged off concerns with the confidence of a man who mistakes his golf club membership card for a diplomatic passport. “China needs us,” he declared, offering little reassurance beyond his fantasy friendship with Xi Jinping.
The rest of the press conference unfolded as a greatest-hits compilation of Trump’s familiar grievances. Judges ruling against him? “Radical left.” Stock market dips? Blame tariffs—or maybe AI again, depending on the hour. Baltimore’s housing needs? Trump dismissed them entirely, instead labeling residents “born criminals,” a statement that echoed with the unmistakable clang of old-fashioned racism.
On domestic security, Trump boasted that he alone saved Los Angeles from burning to the ground by sending in the National Guard—confusing his own actions with unrelated water management decisions in Northern California. Meanwhile, he vowed ominously to send federal forces into Chicago, without offering details, timelines, or constitutional justifications.
The bizarre performance ended with Trump attacking Colorado for adopting mail-in voting, which he used as his stated reason for relocating Space Command to Alabama—a move critics say wastes billions of taxpayer dollars and devastates Colorado jobs. In Trump’s logic, protecting democracy is apparently more dangerous than gutting national defense.
Finally, Trump phoned into a conservative podcast sounding unwell, rasping out familiar grievances about “rigged elections” and a war in Ukraine that, he assured listeners, would never have happened under his leadership. His tone was less presidential and more late-night paranormal radio caller claiming to have proof of Bigfoot.
In sum, Trump’s press conference was a surreal blend of denial, deflection, and delusion—part ghost story, part infomercial, and entirely unhinged. From bluish zombie hands to AI-generated trash conspiracies, the former president once again reminded Americans why his rallies should come with a disclaimer: Not suitable for viewers under the influence of reality.
