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welcome to The Logoff: One year after returning to the White House, Donald Trump is more unconstrained — and unpopular — than ever.
What’s happening? Trump dedicated nearly two hours on Tuesday to a rambling, dishonest press conference touting his record over the past year and free-associating about everything from gas prices to his childhood in queens. Tonight,he will depart for Davos,Switzerland,where he will speak to many of the leaders of a world order in shambles.
Why does this matter? About a month ago, Trump gave an equally strange primetime address, albeit in a different register (shouty, rather than mumbling). At the time, my colleague Zack Beauchamp wrote that it revealed Trump was flailing against political gravity. That remains objectively true — Trump’s approval ratings are abysmal — but whether Trump realizes he’s losing the public (or cares) is less certain. And a delusional Trump may be even more risky than a flailing one.