It can be hard to work out what might be going through Donald Trump’s head at the best of times, but lately his actions have seemed to be increasingly bizarre and reckless. 

However, all of those actions become much easier to understand with one simple perspective shift: Trump knows he is dying, he doesn’t have much time, and he won’t have to face any consequences, at least not in this life.

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Trump often doesn’t seem too stressed about consequences, and that’s felt especially true since he won the 2024 election. But over those four years out of office, he came close to facing very real consequences. He was tried and found liable and guilty in both civil and criminal court. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that he was well on his way to being bankrupt, imprisoned, or both. The only thing that saved him was the presidency.

If Trump leaves the White House again, he’ll be at risk of those consequences again, along with all the other ones that he has racked up over the last few months. While Steve Bannon has become the latest supporter of Trump seeking an unconstitutional third term, and Trump still refuses to rule that out, it starts to feel more likely that Trump will avoid walking out of the White House not by changing the Constitution, but by shuffling off his mortal coil while still in residence.

Trump’s health is clearly failing. He’s been seen struggling with stairs and has even mused that Obama was better at navigating them. His cognitive health might well be in decline, and his instances of random word association in public comments appear to be getting worse.

While Trump and his cronies claim that his medical reports generally show that he is in the finest health any person has ever been in, the number of those reports recently should raise an eyebrow. In early October, he had what he called a “semi-annual physical” at the Walter Reed National Medical Center. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed it was a “routine yearly checkup.” The problem is that he already had his annual physical in April.

Those checkups included an MRI at Walter Reed. “It was perfect,” Trump said, claiming “the doctor said [it] was some of the best reports, for the age, they’ve ever seen.” While MRIs are often used to rule out possible medical concerns, they’re rarely used when there are no concerns to begin with. 

Trump has also claimed to have aced another cognitive test, making comments that echo his “person, woman, man, camera, TV” debacle. 

The White House has not released comments on the MRI or the cognitive test. All of that might be fine, but Trump has historically overstated his health (with the help of his doctors), and with everything else, it becomes part of a suspicious pattern.

Death is clearly on Trump’s mind. He’s been talking about heaven to a concerning degree, working on trying to get into heaven by ending the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and he’s been reflecting on the fact that he won’t be getting through those pearly gates. And if he’s not expecting to get into heaven, his consolation plan seems to be to make sure he leaves some sort of irrevocable mark on the world, whatever sort of mark that might be.

There are plenty of signs of a desire to plant his legacy. His wild bid to win a Nobel Peace Prize has been particularly extravagant (and unsuccessful). Since the start of his presidency, he has hit the ground running, trying to make major (and horrific) changes through executive orders, rushing through everything he wants to do, and putting the military on our streets. There’s a reason that it feels like he’s done quite so much damage in the past nine months.

But no sign of his desire to leave his mark is more explicit than the demolition of the White House’s East Wing. Trump’s plan to build a ballroom was already over the top and set to change the landscape of the White House (and that was after he already paved over the Rose Garden). Demolishing the East Wing takes that re-landscaping far beyond what anyone could have expected.

That ballroom was never going to be finished during Trump’s presidency. It would have been for those who came after. And a construction project can be stopped, or at least redirected. 

But knocking down a large part of one of the most symbolic and historic buildings in the United States? That’s one for the ages. It can’t be rebuilt. 

If Trump dies tomorrow, he will always have changed that landscape. Construction requires time and building permits, but destruction can apparently be rushed through before anyone can complain about not having the required permissions. The hurried nature of the whole project signals that Trump is worried he might not be here to see the progress if they wait even just a little bit longer.

Why is Trump not worried about the consequences of violating the boundaries of his executive powers? Why is Trump not worried about the consequences of shutting down the federal government and wiping out entire departments? Why is Trump not worried about the consequences for his blatant corruption and taking bribes from Qatar? Why is Trump not worried about the consequences of sharing videos of himself wearing a crown as a king while he defecates on protestors from a fighter jet?

Because Trump doesn’t think he will live to see those consequences.

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