New Scrutiny on Trump's Mental Acuity

Summary

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The Beat with Ari Melber – Episode Summary

Episode: New Scrutiny on Trump’s Mental Acuity
Date: April 14, 2026
Host: Ari Melber
Main Guests: Gene Robinson, Molly Jong-Fast, Che Kominduri, and author Michael Pollan

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Overview:

This episode centers on escalating concerns about President Donald Trump’s mental fitness and acuity in the aftermath of a high-profile feud with the Pope, divisive social media posts, and mounting domestic and international crises. Ari Melber and his guests dissect the political, psychological, and cultural implications of Trump’s behavior, highlighting bipartisan criticism, potential electoral consequences, economic ramifications stemming from the Iran war, and broader questions about leadership, consciousness, and truth in American life.

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Main Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Fallout from Trump’s Feud with the Pope

• Initial Incident: Trump posted an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus, sparking outrage across religious and political communities, including key MAGA voices.
• Religious Alienation: Even Trump’s most loyal supporters, including Catholic conservatives and prominent MAGA media figures like Megyn Kelly, publicly condemned the post as blasphemous and politically reckless.
• Bipartisan Rebuke: Congressional Republicans, such as Majority Leader Thune and Senator Hawley, also criticized Trump, urging him to “leave the church alone” and focus on substantive issues.

“That is blasphemy in its purest form. I find it appalling. It’s disgusting. You’re mocking my Lord and savior… it’s evil.” – Political Commentator [02:35]

• Political Impact: Melber underscores the danger of alienating religious voters in an election year, calling Trump’s actions “not good politics” and evidence of declining political instincts.

“He is failing... to speak effectively to his base and build or maintain power.” – Ari Melber [01:31]

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2. Signs of Declining Political Skill and Mental Acuity

• Shifting Tone in MAGA Circles: Even hardline Trump supporters express fatigue and genuine offense, framing the moment as an inflection point.

“If the Trump administration were a TV show, it would be canceled by now.” – Che Kominduri [08:26]

• Loss of ‘Fastball’: Trump’s public statements and social media posts are increasingly “unhinged, lengthy rants” lacking coherence and political acumen.

“Trump isn’t into it anymore. He’s not good at it. He’s not lying well.” – Ari Melber [13:17, summarizing Jon Stewart]

• Late Night Satire: Jon Stewart’s segments underscore broader public mockery and concern about Trump’s declining ability to even execute political performance.

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3. The Iran War and Its Domestic Fallout

• Economic & Political Costs: The ongoing war has led to oil price spikes, inflation, and economic uncertainty.

“IMF now put out grim prospects… this kind of oil market disruption could slow economic growth even if we get through the war… could make inflation rise and ups the risk of a recession.” – Ari Melber [07:07]

• Broken Promises: Trump’s pivot from an “anti-war, cut spending” platform to foreign conflicts is cited as hypocritical, undermining public trust among his base.

“He was all about peace and cutting spending. Then he pivoted to just foreign wars without much of an explanation… American people are being told ‘trust me,’ and gas is more expensive.” – Molly Jong-Fast [19:36]

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4. Broadening Concerns About Trump’s Mental State

• Alarming Behavior: Past allies and even some officials openly describe Trump as “unbalanced” or suffering from “cognitive decline.”

“He does babble and, you know, sound like the brain’s not doing too hot.” – Gene Robinson [23:45]

• Evidence of Disinhibition: New York Times reporting notes increased profanity, incoherence, and erratic tangents in Trump’s public statements.

“Regularly makes comments rooted in fantasy rather than fact… a mind in decline.” – Ari Melber [23:53]

• Calls for Action: Guests argue White House aides, family, or Congress should intervene, though few believe it’s likely.

“If you were sitting next to someone on a subway car and that person started talking the way Donald Trump talks most days now, you would get up and move. And that shouldn’t be the way we describe the President of the United States.” – Gene Robinson [26:37]

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5. Bipartisan and International Perspective

• Global Alarm: Even outside the U.S., Trump’s behavior is viewed as “insane,” exacerbating foreign policy instability.

“I don’t think there’s anybody outside of the United States who believes Trump is sane.” – Guest [21:18; 25:49]

• Comparison to Past Presidents: Both Melber and Robinson draw parallels to moments when past presidents’ faculties were questioned, but stress Trump’s situation feels unique in its visibility and the absence of “responsible adults” in his circle.

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6. Broader Reflections: Consciousness, Truth, and Distraction

• Michael Pollan Interview:
  • Book Theme: Pollan explores consciousness, its mysteries, and our cultural obsession with the self—juxtaposed with America’s collective distraction and anxiety.
  • Limits of Science: Current neuroscience can’t explain or measure subjective experience—the “voice in your head”—raising epistemological questions relevant to both politics and personal life.
  • Cultural Implications: Pollan laments how modern media, technology, and political spectacle (like Trump) pollute and fragment our collective consciousness.
  • Quotes:

    “We haven’t even shown that brains generate consciousness. That’s been the assumption. It may be something very different.” – Michael Pollan [38:50] “We are all squandering [consciousness], polluted by modern life… we’re forced to think about [Trump] every day. Social media… hacks our attention.” – Michael Pollan [42:39]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Trump’s Religious Provocation:

  “I think it was blasphemy. I was offended. I think he should apologize.” – MAGA supporter [03:38]

• On Political Decline:

  “He’s kind of like an aging rock band playing his old hits… so unenthusiastic, where you wonder why he even bothered composing the song in the first place.” – Che Kominduri [14:14]

• On Mental Fitness:

  “The dementia and the cognitive decline are palpable, as do many experts, including many physicians.” – Former White House lawyer [25:28]

• On Leadership Expectation:

  “What do you expect the Republicans in Congress to do, for example… Given the record so far, they’re just going to indulge it. They’re just going to let it happen.” – Gene Robinson [30:19]

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Important Timestamps

• [01:31] — Ari Melber introduces Trump’s feud with the Pope and its political ramifications.
• [02:35] — MAGA voices condemn Trump over the religious post.
• [04:04] — Congressional Republicans begin public criticism.
• [08:26] — Che Kominduri contextualizes MAGA fatigue and administration’s decline.
• [14:14] — Trump compared to an “aging rock band” lacking former energy.
• [18:31] — Iran war’s economic and political fallout discussed.
• [23:45] — Discussion about Trump’s cognitive state led by Gene Robinson.
• [26:37] — Robinson explains Trump’s behavior would be disturbing in any other context.
• [38:35] — Michael Pollan interview begins on consciousness and the limits of scientific understanding.
• [42:39] — Pollan on cultural distraction and the pollution of collective consciousness by figures like Trump.

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Conclusion

In this episode, “The Beat” delivers a scathing, multidimensional critique of President Trump’s conduct, focusing on mounting evidence of mental decline, political missteps, and existential questions about truth, attention, and American leadership. With pointed analysis, personal anecdotes, and insights from leading journalists and thinkers, Ari Melber’s panel conveys the seriousness of the situation while reflecting on how media and consciousness shape our collective political destiny.

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Transcript

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[Ari Melber]

welcome to the beat everyone. I'm Ari Melber. We begin with the fallout over the President's feud with the Pope. There was the offensive post where he tried to depict himself as Jesus and later claimed that the post of Jesus was actually of a doctor. And there is a feud with the Vatican that really doesn't advance any US Interests at all. The backlash is a headache for the Trump camp as they look at a punishing set of problems going into the midterms. Alienating key parts of your base going into the election is not good politics. So even by that narrow measure, there is something off with Donald Trump's ability to do what he used to do on a regular basis, which is speak at least effectively to his base and build or maintain power. He is failing that and I will show you the verdict coming in from many places. We could show you our European allies. We could show you independents, veterans, liberals. But let's start with how this is playing among MAGA voices. That is blasphemy in his purest form. I find it appalling. It's disgusting. You're. You're mocking.

[Political Commentator / Guest]

You're mocking my Lord and savior that it's evil.

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

Just evil. Yeah.

[Political Commentator / Guest]

Not nothing more to say about it he's crazy.

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

Done.

[Ari Melber]

I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed that. That. That he would actually do that. A man I voted for and trust.

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

Do you think this will have an effect on the elections in November, in the midterms?

[Ari Melber]

I hope so.

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

I hope Catholics come out and vote for the Democrats.

[Ari Melber]

It's really. We're in a really bad situation. You can measure this many different ways. The problems were there before Donald Trump's effort here to obviously antagonize religious voters in this country. There's also many MAGA media figures who at times we've seen defend almost anything he does. But more often lately, on the war on the Epstein files, and on what many people call this sacrilege and insensitive and extreme set of religious posts and attacks, they're fed up with Trump. The image on its face is sacrilegious.

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

I think it was blasphemy. I was offended. I think he should apologize.

[Ari Melber]

That kind of insulting behavior, when you

[Political Commentator / Guest]

post something like that on social media

[Ari Melber]

after going after Pope Leo, I mean, does it end? It's offensive. It's patent offensive.

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

I don't know why the president's getting so desperate for attention that he feels the need to mock 1.4 billion Catholics.

[Ari Melber]

He's stepping on his own message. Very bad.

[Commercial Announcer]

He has been an unmitigated disaster.

[Ari Melber]

And on and on it goes. When you look at Republicans in Congress, well, Republican Majority Leader Thune says Trump should leave the church alone. Others call it ill advised. Senator Hawley, who has been an OG kind of MAGA Trump figure, says there's only one Jesus. Best to stick with that. By the standard of criticism in our current era, that's already loud. Other House Republicans saying this. I talked with the president about it

[Political Commentator / Guest]

as soon as I saw it and told him that I don't think it was being received in the same way he intended it. He agreed and he pulled it down.

[Ari Melber]

That was the right thing to do. I can think of a lot of people that might be close to Jesus, and I don't think President Trump is one of them. And I think the President should focus on national security and policy and leave this debate back and back and forth

[Gene Robinson]

alone and walk away.

[Ari Melber]

What we're witnessing is what it sounds like when even the hard right and MAGA voters and some pundits like you saw there, Megyn Kelly, react to Trump the way the majority of the country has been reacting to Trump on issues for many years. He got fewer votes against Hillary Clinton, but we have a funny system that made him president. Then he Was, of course, rejected in those other midterms and in 2020, and he did come back in November 24th. But most of the time, and it's easy to lose sight of this when you look up and you see the President starting wars like this and raising the price of gas and fighting with the Pope, it's easy to look up and say, wait a minute, how do we even get here? How is this person president? And is this popular? And the answer is, no, this is not popular. Although the Nov. 24 victory, which was about by a point and a half spread, shook things up and had a lot of people forgetting that he was unpopular in the first term, as I mentioned, got fewer votes in both elections, 16 and 18, and that writ large. There aren't a lot of people in America who think this is how the President should act or that this is okay or that this is good. So that's just the baseline. Just happens that obviously going after the Pope and saying you're Jesus is going to apparently alienate a larger overlap of your own core supporters. But you got a lot of other people in the country who say, yeah, it's not presidential. Duh. None of this has been presidential the whole time. It's also getting the late night treatment.

[Political Commentator / Guest]

He posted this AI image depicting himself as Jesus, presumably trying to heal Jon Stewart.

[Ari Melber]

Wait, the guy in the bed? Can I just. I. From the picture, it looks like he was touch and go with me for a while, but thank God, in my time of need, I was surrounded by family.

[Political Commentator / Guest]

Donald Trump wants us to believe that he thought this was a doctor. If I'm in a doctor's office and that man walks in, I'm thinking, I died.

[Ari Melber]

So the jokes kind of write themselves. There are broader problems, though, that everyone is living through in reality, including how this war is rattling the economy. The International Monetary Fund now put out grim prospects that this kind of oil market disruption could slow economic growth even if we get through the war, meaning some of the damage is done, and it could make inflation rise and ups the risk of. Of a recession. So Trump has a shrinking tent, as Axios puts it, and he is at a place where he either doesn't know or doesn't care about just how badly it's going. I want to bring in Molly Zhang, fast contributing writer for the New York Times, host of the Fast Politics podcast, and Che Komindoori, political strategist and Obama campaign veteran. Che, what do you say to people who might be watching tonight? And go, oh, gosh, that's what MAGA voters and Megyn Kelly sound like when they could easily be at a no Kings protest or be a Trump critic over the last entire period of his political life, because they seem mad that he's unpresidential, mad that he's not putting American interests first, and then mad that he lies and is churlish and immature about the scandals he creates. It just happens. These, as I mentioned, resonate more for some of them. Yeah.

[Political Commentator / Guest]

I mean, if the Trump administration were a TV show, it would be canceled by now. The reality is, and I understand that people who are Christian. I'm not Christian, but I understand that people who are Christian are deeply offended by the post, that. This post. But he has done this before. Just a year ago, he posted an image of himself as the Pope after the death of Pope Francis, and it was, to be honest, just a minor kerfuffle. I mean, Lindsey Graham was like, oh, that wasn't a great thing he did. And that was it. It was kind of forgotten about, and everybody moved on. It's interesting that this particular post has sort of had this enduring negative commentary. And I think the reason is that the Iran war has really changed things. The Iran war was basically Trump's Katrina moment. It was an inflection point where it was very clear to even his most ardent supporters that this presidency is off the rails. And this movement, as it was led by Trump appear, appears to have hit a dead end.

[Ari Melber]

So you see this as almost the gateway. Do you think this is conscious for many of these folks, or this is just how it's actually spilling out?

[Political Commentator / Guest]

I think it's. This is how it's actually spilling out. I don't think it's particularly conscious. I mean, one thing I'm reminded by is 20 years ago, David Brooks talked about the enormous Republican anger when George W. Bush was president in his second term, about illegal immigration, about the undocumented workers who were then coming into the country from Mexico. And he said there was actually a lot of anger about the Iraq war in the conservative base, but you couldn't say it. You know, there was such a loyalty to Bush and a loyalty to the war that you couldn't say it. So immigration kind of became the issue where all of that anger was allowed to sort of pour out. And I think this is the same thing here. You know, a lot of the people, you know, who were offended by this. I mean, a year ago, President Trump called Jewish Americans Shylocks. He campaigned as an Islamophobe, saying he wanted to ban Muslims. I mean, he has basically offended all of the Abrahamic religions right now. I'm sure for Hindus and Buddhists, our turtle in the barrel is going to be coming soon. But this is basically what he does. This is what he has always done. But now people are just kind of tired and fed up with it.

[Ari Melber]

Molly?

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

I think, yeah, AI Jesus does not happen in a vacuum. Right. This is about the gas prices. This is about the war in Iran. This is about just governing in a way that's completely the opposite as to what he said he would do. And if you look at his poll numbers, I mean, we're like in Nixon territory here. So I do think this is the sort of vessel for that. But I think that's a really good point. And we have seen Donald Trump do offensive stuff like this before, and people have said his supporters have made excuses for him. They've said he's trolling or this is the humor, or this is. It's to own the libs. These same people said that just a few months ago, and now they're saying this is a bridge too far. And I do think it has to do with the larger situation, the larger landscape.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah. And Trump obviously views what the Pope said is somehow an attack on him or a big claim that also shows a kind of a. A loose grip on reality because religious leaders commonly talk of peace. And it was not playing out here in our newsrooms or anywhere really relevant to American politics, as if the Pope had gone after him and drawn some big line. It was really pretty standard. So it shows that his sense of things is off. J.D. vance, trying to thread the needle. Take a look at him on Fox. I certainly think that in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican

[Political Commentator / Guest]

to stick to matters of morality, to

[Ari Melber]

stick to matters of, you know, what's going on in the Catholic Church, and let the President, United States, stick to

[Political Commentator / Guest]

dictating American public policy.

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

Yeah. I mean, he's got. Look, this. This is a guy who just was in Hungary, right, campaigning for Viktor Orban. So this is, you know, we're just gonna stay in our lane here in America. But the idea was that the Pope was talking about peace. He wasn't talking about some American, you know, he wasn't saying, like, you should go, you know, you should get rid of the, you know, whatever, the metric system. He was not getting into the nuances of policy. He was just talking about peace. And Donald Trump so, so personalized that, that he found he was offended by it. And I think that says a lot more about Donald Trump than it does about the Pope.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah. And Che, the entire Jon Stewart piece last night was definitely worth a watch. He makes the point that Trump isn't into it anymore. He's not good at it. He's not lying. Well, as something we had discussed actually this week. And that's sort of filtering out beyond political junkies as well. And I'm curious what you think about that, because for someone who of course, had his own reasons for wanting to come back into power, and that's not unique to him, most politicians want both terms, et cetera, he certainly doesn't seem like he's into it. They also made fun of the fact that while you don't have to go do the Pakistan negotiations yourself, the president often will send someone. Him being at, you know, a wrestling match and just cavorting around and no empathy or care for what the public is going through with gas prices and the military risk, that all of it just seems like he's not actually into the job either.

[Political Commentator / Guest]

Yeah, I mean, he definitely seems checked out. I mean, it's why, you know, James Carville, I think, even on this show, has said he believes Trump will simply pack it up next year and leave the White House. I don't know if I would go that far, but you can definitely see it in the way he's conducting himself. He is very much checked out. And one of the things about Trump always was that he was energized by fighting, by the rallies, by being this entertainment figure. He no longer seems quite energized by that anymore. Now it seems like much more that he's kind of just going through the motions. He's kind of like an aging rock band playing his old hits and doing so in a way that's so unenthusiastic, where you wonder why he even bothered composing the song in the first place is definitely like a. Like a sort of an a Leonard Skynyrd, aging Leonard Skynyrd, Free Bird quality to like what Trump is doing now where he doesn't even seem to be care.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah. And that when. Well, there, there is an arc to big acts that when in the last years, it feels more like they're a diminished cover band of their own classics. And then you have to decide, do you go because it's nostalgia and it's fun to be at the show or not? The stakes here are obviously much higher. Molly and Chase, stay with me. Quick break. We're back in 90 seconds.

[Political Commentator / Guest]

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[Ari Melber]

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AARP Fraud Watch Network. Nice try. Visit aarp.org fraudwatchnetwork to recognize fraud. Sooner the younger you are, the more you need aarp. We're back with Molly Jong Fast and Che Kominduri. Che, where does the Iran war go for Trump if he's blockading the blockade, which John Stewart also had good lines on last night, saying, oh, you're, you're gonna rough up my store, I'll rough up my store myself. I'll show you. I mean, it really is something to behold. And everyone can see. You talk about the emperor has no clothes. The emperor has no foreign policy strategy. Right. Perhaps not quite as exciting as clothes, but it still is what everyone has noticed. I mean, you don't have to be a war expert to say, well, the gas was cheaper. Now it's more expensive. You heard that it goes through this strait. Now that's closed. I mean, people are hearing the problems, Chad.

[Political Commentator / Guest]

Yeah, I mean, there was no plan B. And for me, the most telling anecdote from the very long Maggie Haberman piece about Trump's decision to go to war was when his advisors were really concerned

[Ari Melber]

about what would happen.

[Political Commentator / Guest]

And he said, well, it's gonna work out because it always does. And I think for Trump, it has, up until now, always worked out. I mean, you know, he has, you know, he actually had an assassination attempt that he survived. He has came back from the political dead. He has beaten indictments and convictions. He has done incredible things. He just seems to have at every turn have defied all the political odds and been enormously luck. But the reality is luck runs out. You know, there's an anecdote that Napoleon used to ask whether his generals were lucky. Well, the problem is, is that for Napoleon, the luck eventually ran out. And the Iran war is looking a lot like Donald Trump's Waterloo.

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

I also think, remember Donald Trump became president and he was like, I'm going to cut spending and we're going to end wars. And he did so much, you know, I'm making peace. I'm putting these people together, we're going to bring peace. He was so mad that he wasn't going a Peace prize, that FIFA made up a peace prize for him. He's the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize. You know, he was all about peace and cutting spending. Right. That was like the thing. I mean, maybe he wasn't really doing it as much as he was talking about it, but he was talking about a lot. And then he sort of pivoted to just foreign wars without much of an explanation. And even the Gulf wars, there was an explanation. There was a want to get the American people on board. Would this. The American people are being told like, trust me, and gas is more expensive and what I think the American people are not seeing. And Jason Crow was on Morning Joe this morning talking about this. This is costing so much money. This war is costing more than a billion dollars a day. And this is going to end up having real long term consequences.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah, no, it's as you say, it's really extraordinarily a breach with what he told people. And the duality is a lot of people felt like, yeah, well, you know he's a liar, right? You figured that out by now. And then you're watching people on the war, on religion, on prices, realizing, oh, my God, he lied to us and it may hurt him in the midterms. Molly and Che, thanks to both of you. Ahead by the end of the hour, Michael Pollan, the New York Times vet and great author, is here with a book that could really blow your mind. I'll explain. Coming up though, from Jeffries to Schumer to Tucker to Alex, Alex Jones, questions, serious evidence backed questions about the president's declining mental state.

[Political Commentator / Guest]

I don't think there's anybody outside of the United States who believes that Trump is sane.

[Ari Melber]

Donald Trump has been unusual for a long time by the standards of certainly political figures or most people in public life. But that doesn't mean that that is a baseline that is good for American leadership policy, national security. That's one level. And also doesn't mean that a further decline on his behalf should be excused because of past inappropriate and unusual behavior. He is erratic. It is alarming people. Jon Stewart, who we mentioned was mocking Trump's outlandish claim that his Jesus photo was not a Jesus photo, that it was a doctor. God, do you even care about lying to us anymore? Is it over? Is this relationship gone still? Your lies used to have a real spark. They're eating the cats and dogs. Venezuela stole the 2020 election, and now the best you've got is, oh, no,

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

your guy wasn't Jesus.

[Ari Melber]

I'm a doctor. You need to find your happy place and fast. We expect better lies, sir. Better lies is a joke, but part of the punchline is that Trump has clearly lost his fastball, even when it comes to propaganda. Former allies and advisors question whether Trump has grown unbalanced. They say he's a lunatic. Some say he's clearly insane. According to New York Times reporting, the social media posts that he has shared lately are not just about inappropriate words or extreme jokes. In AI pictures, he proclaimed he would wipe out an entire civilization. And that means you have people viewing him as a deranged autocrat, mad with power and disinhibited with a mind in decline. Again, this is also something discussed on the right.

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

It's absolute madness. How can any person that is mentally stable call for an entire civilization of people to be murdered?

[Political Commentator / Guest]

Those people who are in direct contact with the president need to say, no, I'll resign. I'll do whatever I can do legally to stop this, because this is insane.

[Gene Robinson]

He does babble and, you know, sound

[Political Commentator / Guest]

like the brain's not doing too hot

[Ari Melber]

in the second term. The Times reports that Trump is less restrained and more incoherent. More profanity, speaks longer, regularly, makes comments rooted in fantasy rather than fact. Again, his penchant for lies and exaggeration are a different issue than whether, as allies and observers say, he is now someone who does not have a grip on reality at all. And he has been seen going off on all kinds of tangents to 25 million. And it would be better. It would be better. See this pen right here? The Stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland, So Iceland's already cost us a lot of money. So this pen is very inexpensive, but it writes well. I like it. I picked those drapes in my first term. I always liked gold. I love the government like I love myself economically. The black mamba, the brown mamba, and the viper from Peru. I got all you people looking and you say there must be something wrong with Trump. The question is not whether people think this is funny or entertaining. We're in the middle of this war, and the question very clearly we must ask is the president okay? We'll always tell you what's happening. The White House pushes back hard on this. They say Trump is sharp and this is the usual critiques that he faces. There are veterans, though, who've worked with him, and they say they see a decline. Indeed, this came up when we were interviewing a former White House lawyer on the beat.

[Political Commentator / Guest]

I think there's been a significant decline. He's always been driven by narcissism, but I think the dementia and the cognitive decline are palpable, as do many experts, including many physicians. I don't think there's anybody outside of the United States who believes that Trump is sane.

[Ari Melber]

Regardless of where you live, what do you believe and do you have the evidence to make a good assessment? It does matter. The last time a president faced this, what started with the idea that nothing would change ended with an unusual campaign switch. You don't know where these things lead. Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Robinson on this important issue next. We're back with Gene Robinson, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, msnow analyst. I went through a lot of the evidence here. Your view of the president's mental position, whether he's in some decline, that can be fairly observed and how we should deal with this. We went through this with President Biden as well, and there seems to be a responsible way to do it and less responsible ways.

[Gene Robinson]

Well, it certainly looks like decline to me. I think there's a combination of pretty evident decline. I mean, if you were sitting next to someone on a subway car and that person started talking the way Donald Trump talks on most days now, you would get up and move. And that that shouldn't be the way we describe the President of the United States. It shouldn't be the way we describe the most powerful man in the world. I think, in part, I think a lot of this was there all along. I think a lot of it we didn't see in. Trump won because there were the responsible adults around him who sort of tamped at down to some extent, and there are none of them now. So it's let Trump be Trump all the time. And the Trump we have now is not the Trump that we had in. In the first term. It's just a different person even in the first term.

[Ari Melber]

Things that seem totally trivial, like the fact that Twitter largely had a limit on the length of posts. He at times would do more than one, but that itself limited it. When you look at, for example, the recent posts about the Pope, to extend your analogy, if someone spoke like that on the subway, a long, meandering run on sentence, all caps. However you take that emphasis jumping around all these other topics, the fact that we just see him unvarnished because nobody around him says, well, Mr. President, let's clean this up into a statement or let's break this up. It is a strange part of him and his media choices that we actually see what is, respectfully, an unhinged, lengthy rant.

[Gene Robinson]

Exactly. It was totally unhinged. And in any normal White House, under any prior president, I don't think any president has been quite like Donald Trump in terms of being apparently unbalanced. But if any president were, you'd never see it in something like that, that social media rant, because social media posts got. And any statement from the White House went through a whole process, got looked at by layer upon layer of officials. But because what the President of the United States says and how the president says it is important, obviously. It moves markets, for example, it can wreck alliances, it can start wars and a threat to destroy an entire civilization. You've never seen, or I've never seen that before. I mean, this is not normal.

[Ari Melber]

So let me direct you, as a, as a student, an expert on Washington, of where this goes, because we've all heard the smug, often wrong predictions. Oh, LBJ is not going to give up. He fought his whole life to be in this office. And eventually the Vietnam protest and other things had him standing out. Oh, Biden stayed through. If he would have left, he would have left earlier. And then we saw what changed. I understand no one expects this version of the Republican ecosystem to pressure Trump, but we haven't even hit a halfway point of this term. I'm curious how you think this plays out in Washington.

[Gene Robinson]

Yeah, and Ari, I have absolutely no idea, because as you say, we are not halfway through this term.

[Ari Melber]

We don't know.

[Gene Robinson]

It seems to be accelerating. It seems to be getting worse. And so does something have to give at some point? I don't know. I really don't know what do you expect the Republicans in Congress to do, for example, what do you expect the White House aides around the president to do? Given the record so far, they're just going to indulge it. They're just going to let it happen. I don't see anybody getting in his face and saying, look, this is, slow down here. There's something wrong here. And, and this is not good for the country. It's not good for you. And let's take some, you know, let's, let's figure this out and let's take some steps forward. You would hope a family member would do that at some point. But again, do you see that happening? It's hard for me to imagine it right now, but as you say, you kind of never know. And this is getting bad. This is really getting bad.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah. And it's in the middle of war where you say everyone watched and said, oh well, I'm really thankful he didn't act on the rant to do war crimes. That's where we're at. And so you say with more than half of the term left, do you get to a point where it's an after action assessment of are you gonna allow this to continue? Hopefully in many ways it doesn't get there. Going to fit in a break. Gene Robinson, always great to see you. When we come back, as promised, the New York Times veteran and fascinating author Michael Pollan is here. Wait till you hear what he's cooking up.

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[Ari Melber]

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[Ari Melber]

and take a ride to here and now. Eight miles high. Where are my arms?

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[Ari Melber]

It's right here. Does that get you in the mood? You know, from America's famed hippie counterculture to today's self help, spiritual growth and wellness industries which actually top a trillion dollars globally, we have clearly a long running fascination with how people aspire to some version of the higher self. You could pursue it through health or meditation, adventure travel for some substances. And nowadays there are more podcasters and digital gurus and guides that animate those pursuits through conversation. So all of this can shape some of our culture, our daily values, even our politics. Because we know younger Americans in this Covid generation are focused on a kind of fulfillment beyond just those narrow measures of work, money and capitalism. Even though most people need to work to make money to have a place to live. So we're living through something. Or take the Artemis stunning new images that remind our divided world we are still one planet and have stoked the sense, at least for some, that there's gotta be more to life than just getting through the day. The astronauts who actually just experienced that tremendous set of views, they went hundreds of thousands of miles away from our planet, hard to even conceive. And some of them reflected on how humanity does have Earth as this refuge floating in the black emptiness of space.

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

What struck me wasn't necessarily just Earth. It was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe. Planet Earth. You are a crew.

[Ari Melber]

How about that? That kind of perspective circles back to the deeper questions I mentioned. What does it mean to be a conscious human? We know we have all this information these days. We have this technology, including new tech coming out of. We certainly have more tools to live than prior centuries, generations. But have we figured out any better how to live with depth or meaning? Some people do find the answer in their daily life. Family, work, doing some good some of the time, others, and of course, religious and spiritual outlooks. If you happen to watch the show, we were talking about religion and the Pope to start the show. We're coming at it from a different direction right now. But I say all this because a new book is tackling the available knowledge of consciousness itself. Is it basically just information processing which then becomes a question about the precise role of feelings? We hear about AI consciousness that's being taken more seriously these days. The phenomenon of feeling is finding its way into scientific thinking about consciousness, though the book that I'm quoting is by New York Times veteran and acclaimed author Michael Pollan. He shaped public views on food and drugs with best selling books you might have heard of. And he's now taking this journey into consciousness itself. He explores what are 22 theories of consciousness that often treat it as a computational operation conducted by our brain, sort of an operating system, but also questioning the reductive faith of our time, a belief that the brain is a computer, basically, that conscious awareness emerges somehow from that processing of information. He writes, and he asks if that is too limiting, if consciousness might encompass something deeper or harder to measure and perhaps push even beyond just us humans having it to include other living things. I'm thrilled to tell you that our special guest now is Michael Collins, the New York Times bestselling author professor of science and journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Welcome. Thank you, Ari.

[Michael Pollan]

Great to be here.

[Ari Melber]

Great to have you. I've read a lot of your books. This one is really weird. So I'll start with my real question. Sometimes, you know, you think, what's the question? Here's my question. What are you talking about?

[Michael Pollan]

I'm talking about something we all know better than we know anything else, that we are conscious humans. There's nothing we are more sure of everything else we know. We know through consciousness. We infer, we have to infer it, even the material world, yet we don't understand it. It's a weird paradox that we could be so, I mean, science has yet to answer how it is that you have subjective experience, that you have a voice in your head. And I thought that we knew more. When I embarked on this journey, I wanted to see what science had to. But it turns out that we're not. We haven't even shown that brains generate consciousness. That's been the assumption. It may be something very different than that.

[Ari Melber]

You mentioned the voice. Most people can relate to that. And so, to be very simple, if you go to a doctor for a certain problem in your heart or parts of your brain, you can then get a visual readout where they say it looks good or there's a problem. You're reminding us there's no scan to show the voice. And we know the voice is there.

[Michael Pollan]

We do. We have no doubt about it. It doesn't show up on any scans. And it, you know, I mean, our assumption is that somehow consciousness is what's called an emergent property of having a lot of brain cells. But the more I looked at that word emergent, it really is a lot like abracadabra, okay? It's hand waving. And it may work very differently. I mean, there are people, including some pretty serious scientists I interviewed, who think maybe consciousness exists outside our brains. And the function of our brains to channel it, almost like a radio receiver. And so we're tuning into consciousness. We're not actually generating. I know, it's a crazy idea.

[Ari Melber]

So that can appeal to people both as spirituality. We're tapping into something, and something collective

[Michael Pollan]

too, something we share.

[Ari Melber]

It also could appeal to people who are versed in a more traditional religious system, because someone might hear you say that and say, okay, Mr. Pollan, that's God you're talking about, Jesus, that it's out there and you're just tapping into it. So what did your research take you to on that pursuit?

[Michael Pollan]

We can't answer that question. We don't have the science. In fact, there's a real problem studying consciousness, that the only tool you have to use to study consciousness is consciousness. So you can literally not get outside it. You can't get that God's eye view of the problem. That's one problem. The other problem is we've organized our science going back to Galileo, who said science is going to be about the objective, quantifiable third person reality. And we're going to leave to the church subjectivity, the first person qualitative things. And he did this because he didn't want the church. You know, the church was going to come down on him. It did anyway. But I mean, he protected science for many, many years. So we have inherited a kind of science that's just ill equipped to deal with. Subjectiv can't get into your head. And you know, that's a big limitation.

[Ari Melber]

Well, in that sense, this, this book and reading it, and this may not be a compliment, but you can take it because you're such a bestselling author. It was very epistemological.

[Michael Pollan]

That's fighting words.

[Ari Melber]

It felt so often about how do we know what we know? And wait a minute, we don't even know what we know. Which is why I think you'd be a big hit like in any dorm room.

[Political Commentator / Guest]

Right.

[Ari Melber]

Because you're like, well, do we even know that? And so is that a loop where by the end of the book we say, wow, maybe we're not there yet, are we? And this isn't meant like a cop out, but are we looking at a problem that for all of the tech we hear about, we're not in the right century to resolve?

[Michael Pollan]

That may be, but there's a lot we do know about consciousness. We may not know how it is created, how it's generated, how it's. But we know, you know, you have this interior space in your head where you can think whatever you want. It's completely private. It's this incredible gift. And we know that you have it. And we also know that we're all squandering it, that our consciousness has been polluted really by modern life in various ways. We have a president that commands our attention to an incredible extent. I mean, we're full of, we're forced to think about him every day. We have social media that is, you know, has found an algorithm that allows it to hack our attention and that, you know, obviously when you're scrolling on social media, you're conscious, but minimally so.

[Ari Melber]

Well, you can even feel that when, if you come out of a social media lane or a certain type of trash tv, you're almost in a bit of a fugue state when you, when you kind of stop watching. Yeah. You write about how we actually get break through that. You write about moments of awe.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah.

[Ari Melber]

And you say that could be family, that the awe of looking at a child and just being completely reset or being nature.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah.

[Ari Melber]

Or you say psychedelics. So reading from the book, you say in the crudest chemical terms. Cocaine and caffeine are exploit drugs. And then you talk about LSD as an explore drug. It helps restore the adult brain, the plasticity and the numinousness of childhood. No coincidence. Psychedelics soften or dissolve even the sense of self.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, I mean, that's another dimension of consciousness that's really interesting. The most interesting product of consciousness is our sense of self that is generated by our consciousness. And we have very paradoxical feelings about this. We celebrate self esteem. We want our kids to be self confident. Yet we spend a lot of time escaping self. Some of the highest experiences in life are when we transcend our sense of self. Awe is a classic example. Awe shrinks the self. We're in awe. I mean, the astronauts have this. They call it the overview effect. And they have this powerful sense of oneness. So the self is an important thing. It gets your TV show done. It gets me to write books. Very, very useful. On the other hand, it traps us because it builds walls. And we want nothing more than to bring those walls down and merge with something larger, a sense of the planet. It could be love, it could be nature. And we crave that.

[Ari Melber]

To paraphrase what might be, I know your favorite president, Mr. Ego. Tear down this wall. Tear down this wall. Yeah. You don't get an lsd. Reagan, Gorbachev, joke. Not on every book interview you do. I first won. It doesn't mean it's any good. I think this is. We want to set aside time on this, even a busy day, because I think you've written something really extraordinary that connects with the questions people are having. So thank you.

[Michael Pollan]

Oh, thank you. What a pleasure.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah. Michael Pollan. The book again is a World, a Journey into Consciousness. And you can get it wherever books are sold. We'll be right back. Turning to news out of Congress that developed quite quickly, Congressman Eric Swel and Tony Gonzalez both officially resigned today. They have been facing an array of allegations of office and sexual misconduct. And some of this was developed over time. In Swalwell's case, the public accounts came only very recently. Accusers now speaking out today with their views and stories.

[Tech Advertiser / Caller]

I believe he drugged my drink, he raped me, and he choked me. And while he was choking me, I lost consciousness. What I keep thinking back to is how lucky I am that I didn't go to that hotel one night. He was on a trip and he was laying in his hotel room bed, and then he sent me a photo of his penis. I think we just prevented another 30 to 40 years, potentially, of him harming people if he were to stay in Congress.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah. These are serious accounts of misconduct. Some involve office place issues and workplace harassment. Others, as you heard there, involve allegations of potential crimes. Now, we can say as of tonight, no criminal charges against Swalwell or Gonzalez have been filed. The House Ethics Committee, though, has opened probes into both of them. Both men have said that they exercise lapses in judgment, but they are denying the serious accounts there. Swalwell denying the allegation of rape. We wanted to continue our reporting on that story. That does it for the Beat tonight.

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