Author and longtime Trump critic Kurt Andersen said President Donald Trump's mental and cognitive faculties are already "rapidly declining" — and, in his view, they are about to get much worse very soon, should the GOP take the beating predicted for it in the November 2026 midterm elections.

Andersen is a writer best known for co-founding Spy, the New York satirical magazine of the late 1980s and 1990s that took aim at numerous celebrities over the years but none more relentlessly than Trump, whom it began repeatedly branding a "short-fingered vulgarian" in 1988. His books include the cultural history "Fantasyland." Appearing Sunday as a guest on the latest edition of The Daily Beast Podcast, Andersen told host Joanna Coles that "the president is going to become increasingly angry and erratic as his mental health declines," and that a severe loss for Republicans in the midterms would sure to accelerate that decline.

"He's obviously beyond whatever cognitive decline he had and has, and more manifest craziness, I think the kind of elderly kind of, as they call it in dementia, sundownerism, where people who are with dementia... late in the day, like, just get angry," Andersen said. "In his case and in old people's case, like a kind of the sun, the sunset itself is a daily foreshadowing of 'you're gonna die soon.'"

"He will be more angry, you know, more himself, and God knows what forms that will take in terms of anger and depression," Andersen added. Trump, who at 78 became the oldest person ever elected to the presidency, turns 80 in June 2026.

The writer described the president as "a guy who has gotten everything he ever wanted," most notably "fear, respect and... attention."

"He's got it all," Andersen said. "And yet he is so manifestly miserable."

In Andersen's assessment, the cracks and drama already forming within the Republican Party ahead of the midterms — including candidates getting caught blaming Trump for their woes — are likely to leave the president even more deranged. He also predicted that Trump would retreat to his customary means of deflecting damage to his ego.

"He'll say it's rigged, and he'll do all that stuff that we know and thank goodness, you know, we've had some years to build a legal apparatus that's prepared for that," Andersen said. "But, he will be blamed, and... we already have Ken Paxton on his hot mic [saying], 'Trump's bringing me down here.' You know, the most unlikable, unpopular Republican candidate in America... and this is Mr. MAGA, who only... has the nomination for Senate in Texas because of, you know, Trump's petty, petulant dislike of John Cornyn, who no doubt would be, you know, sailing to reelection today." Paxton, Texas's attorney general since 2015, is running for the Senate seat held by Cornyn, a Republican who has represented Texas in the chamber since 2002. Control of both chambers of Congress will be at stake in November, with Republicans defending narrow majorities in the House and Senate.