IF THE PARTIES WERE REVERSED, WE'D BE ON THE VERGE OF MEDBED-GHAZI

So this happened:

President Donald Trump shared a bizarre AI video to social media in which he’s seen promoting “med beds” — a far-right conspiracy involving a magical bed that can supposedly heal any sickness.

In a post to his Truth Social platform late Saturday night, Trump shared a phony, AI-generated Fox News clip in which he’s seen rolling out this magic technology to hospitals nationwide.

“Every American will soon receive their own medbed card,” AI Trump said. “With it, you’ll have guaranteed access to our new hospitals led by the top doctors in the nation, equipped with the most advanced technology in the world.”

Trump tonight appears to have pushed the false "medbed" conspiracy theory, which has spread in the far-right internet over the years. www.yahoo.com/news/qanon-c...

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— Alex Kaplan (@alkapdc.bsky.social) September 27, 2025 at 11:14 PM

In 2022, the Daily Beast's Kelly Weill reported:

An increasingly popular conspiracy theory falsely centers around the existence of “med beds,” a fabled medical instrument that does everything from reversing aging to regrowing missing limbs. The theory has grown in popularity among followers of far-right movements like QAnon, some of whom claim to be urgently awaiting a med bed to treat severe health conditions....

Some QAnon sects have made med beds central to their conspiratorial claims. A Dallas-based group, which follows the Q influencer Michael “Negative 48” Protzman, has promoted med beds, in part because the devices address a plot hole in another conspiracy theory. The group falsely believes that John F. Kennedy is still alive and youthful, and attributes his remarkable longevity to the curative powers of med beds.

It's not clear where Trump found this video. Gizmodo's Matt Novak writes,

The video Trump posted says a Medbed card will be available soon. I haven’t found where the video originated, but medbedcard. com is a scam website selling some kind of bullshit card for hundreds of dollars.

Why did Trump post this? Is this a sign of dementia?

I don't think so. Every so often, Trump reaches out to the QAnon community. He seems to want to keep the Q people on his side without firmly committing to their ideology. Alternately, he half-watched this video and thought it cast him in a good light -- as a provider of good things -- so he told his aides, What the hell, post that, too. (His other posts last night included a video of his appearance at a golf tournament, headlined "Trump Arrives to Massive Applause at Ryder Cup." He'll apparently post anything that makes him look beneficent or beloved.)

I don't see Trump's embrace of this medical crackpottery as a sign of dementia -- but maybe Democrats should start demanding answers.

If President Biden had posted a video about a bed said to be capable of regrowing limbs, every Republican in Congress would be demanding answers from the White House about Biden's cognitive state. Prominent Republicans would announce hearings on "Medbed-gate" -- or, if they were in the minority, would demand congressional oversight and ask what Democrats were covering up. This would be a weeklong story (at least) on Fox News. Before long, pundits at The New York Times and The Atlantic would be asking whether it was time to use the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.

Democrats could try to make this a big story now. They could play the dementia angle, and also the quackery angle (this is consistent with many other steps the administration is taking to advance dubious medical ideas over solid science). Republicans would counter that Trump was just joking -- can't humorless libs take a joke? At that point, maybe a few Democratic-leaning joke writers and comedians could weigh in and say, I know comedy. Where's the joke?

Many people on our side believe that Democrats need to have a narrow message focused on "kitchen-table issues," and think everything else is a "distraction." Or maybe they believe that everything is a distraction from the Epstein files. Whichever version they prefer, they agree on one thing: Democrats shouldn't talk about anything apart from a highly select group of issues.

That's ridiculous. Trump's messaging successes are proof that Americans can focus on multiple issues in the course of day. (Given what the internet has done to our attention spans, this was inevitable.) I think Democrats should focus on the important stuff -- but they should also focus on anything Trump does or says that makes him look ridiculous or that's wildly unpopular. Invading Greenland. The Gulf of America. That kind of thing. When Trump makes himself look like an idiot, Democrats should draw as much attention as possible to it. That might soften middle-of-the-road voters up for more serious critiques of Trump.

Democrats should try to turn this into Medbed-ghazi. What have they got to lose?

*****

UPDATE: Trump's post has been deleted.