For a president who likes command and control, Donald Trump certainly says “I don’t know” a lot when asked questions about what is going on in the federal government he supposedly leads. His latest “I don’t know” came on July 22 in response to a reporter’s question about whether he “support(ed) the DOJ seeking an interview with Ghislaine Maxwell,” the former girlfriend of the notorious Jeffrey Epstein.
“I don’t know anything about it. They’re gonna what? Meet her?” said Trump. Trying to help out, the befuddled president, the reporter explained, “The deputy attorney general has reached out to Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorney, asking for an interview.”
Trump repeated, “Yeah, I don’t know about it, but I think it would be something—sounds appropriate to do, yeah.” Asked whether Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche should conduct the interview, the president again confessed his ignorance. “He’s a very talented person, he’s very smart. I didn’t know he was going to do it, I don’t follow it too much, it’s sort of a witch hunt.”
Before examining some of Trump’s other “I don’t knows,” and what they tell us about whether the president is really running the government, let’s recall the many occasions on which he accused former President Joe Biden of not being in charge.
For example, in June, Trump said of Biden, "He didn't have much of an idea what was going on. He shouldn't be ... I mean, essentially, whoever used the autopen was the president. And that is wrong. It's illegal, it's so bad, and then it's so disrespectful to our country," Trump said.
As ABC News reports, “Shortly after Trump directed the Justice Department to investigate the circumstances surrounding Biden's supposed execution of numerous executive actions during his final years in office."
In June 2024, at the time Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Trump said, “All those around him, including his Doctor and the Media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being President, and he wasn’t.”
And in March of that year, Trump offered this assessment of his predecessor. “He has no clue, like with the documents hoax. How about that? He’s not competent to stand trial, but he’s allowed to be the president.”
No clue? For a president who so frequently says he doesn’t know about things the government is doing, no clue might be an apt description.
Recall that during the 2024 campaign, “I don’t know anything about it” was his standard answer when he was asked about Project 2025. On one occasion, he explained, "I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying, and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them."
"I don't know anything about it. I don't want to know anything about it," could have been his campaign slogan.
But the “I don’t knows” did not end when the campaign ended and Trump began his second term.
In May, NBC’s Kristen Welker asked the president whether people subject to deportation had a constitutionally protected right to due process of law. Trump’s reply had a familiar ring to it. “I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” he said.
Welker pressed the question, “Do you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” “I don’t know,” Trump replied. “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”
The president simply doesn’t understand his legal obligations. That was made clear in May as well.
During an Oval Office press availability, he was asked, “Is the administration sending migrants to Libya?” Given the importance of immigration and deportation policy to his administration, one might have thought this would be an easy question.
Not for the president. “I don’t know,” he responded. “You’ll have to ask the Department of Homeland Security.”
On May 7, Trump was asked about Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s discussion of possible tariff exemptions for certain consumer goods. Tariffs are another key area of administration policy.
But no change.
“I don’t know, I’ll think about it,” the president said. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”
And recently, when asked, “Why do you think your supporters in particular have been so interested in the Epstein story?” The president again professed ignorance.
“I don't understand…. I don't understand it.”
As MSNBC’s Steve Benen has rightly observed, “Most objective observers would probably agree that if Joe Biden repeatedly said, ‘I don’t know’ in response to simple questions about his own administration, it would be front-page news.”
Since the president returned to the White House, it has not been.
Nor has the press paid much attention to how little time President Trump spends at work. A website that tracks his golfing habits reports that as of July 25, he “has golfed 43 days out of 187 days since returning to office (23.0% of the presidency spent golfing).”
He spent eight of April’s 30 days on the golf course and eight of May’s 31 days there as well.
Even when he is in the White House, the president devotes enormous amounts of time to what is politely referred to as “executive time.” During that time, he is not in the Oval Office or doing official business.
In his first term, such executive time meant that he spent “his mornings in the residence, watching TV, reading the papers, and responding to what he sees and reads by phoning aides, members of Congress, friends, administration officials, and informal advisers.”
In 2019, Newsweek explained that “Trump Spends Two-Thirds of his Time as President Doing Nothing in Particular.” With this schedule, it is no wonder that the president appears to be unfamiliar with his policies, constitutional duties, and the actions of his subordinates on his behalf.
Delegation is one thing; indifference is another.
What the columnist Steve Chapman wrote early in the president’s first term remains true today. “Much of Trump's cluelessness about issues,” Chapman argued, “stems from his refusal to make more than a minimal effort at his job…. “
Trump, Chapman continued, “is not merely too lazy to learn; he's too lazy to notice there is anything others know that he might need to. His is indolence on an epic scale.”
Democratic governments can work well when power is delegated by political leaders who remain attentive and accountable. But a leader’s laziness, indifference, and ignorance are a toxic brew in any government, but especially in one as powerful as our own, and where the people entrust much of that power to the president.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.