The Friday Brief

April 11, 2025

Inside: Madness, Not Method. The Supreme Court Gets One Right. Trump’s Enemies List. Kashing Out. War With Iran. Third Term Bullshit. The 2026 Battlefield. Egg Prices Did What? Elon Gets Dragged. Substack Finds. What I’m Reading. Scenes from the Home Front.

The Big Picture

Madness, Not Method

Is Donald Trump insane?

That’s the question Wall Street started asking about 36 hours ago, right in the middle of the whiplash tariff nonsense that was—and still is—driving the global economy straight into a ditch. Suddenly, a bunch of fund managers, who are at least nominally driven by logic, facts, data, and profit motive, began saying the quiet part out loud.

Wall Street fund managers started saying the quiet part out loud to their clients and the media.

“And their concern is that the White House is not acting rationally, but rather on ideology. And some even fear that this may not even be ideology,” he added. “A few have quietly wondered if the President might be insane.”

Yes. The answer is yes.

There’s no need to wonder. The guy with the nuclear codes, commanding the world’s largest economy and a legislature that can’t quite quit him, is by any standard out of his damn mind. His brain is broken. His ideas are reckless brain-farts coughed up by a mind Swiss-cheesed by age, drug-resistant 1970s disco crotch-rot, a stonking Adderall addiction, a diet of KFC, and an education so indifferent it’s a miracle he doesn’t sign his name with an “X.”

There’s no plan. There’s never a plan. It’s all twitchy, hindbrain reflexes: “Ooh, shiny object! Squirrel!” He’s a presidential embodiment of a glitching small-language AI model—a buggy, crapulous lackwit surrounded by people desperately trying to slip their agendas into his head and hoping they don’t dribble out onto the carpet five minutes later.

Naturally, the so-called Trade War is a shambolic, destructive shitshow. Because he is a shambolic, destructive shitshow.

Yesterday, he caved under pressure from aides who finally realized crashing the economy on purpose might be bad for the 2026 reelection and his hold on power.

So he caved, and the market soared.

And right on cue, the next phase kicked in: his supporters (on Wall Street and beyond) put on their dancing shoes for the usual “Let’s pretend he meant to do that!” routine.

The market roared back, making up a bunch of losses. Then reality set in again: We’re still in a trade war, still in conflict with our three most important trading partners—China, Mexico, and Canada—and other nations are punching back. Hard.

So that nagging question creeps back into the minds of the stock-picking suits: “Is Trump insane?”

And just like that, the market headed down again.