It was one sentence among the many words Donald Trump spoke this week that caught my attention.
Midway through a jaw-dropping news conference where he sensationally claimed to have “found an answer on autism”, he said: “Bobby (Kennedy) wants to be very careful with what he says, but I’m not so careful with what I say.”
The US president has gone from pushing the envelope to completely unfiltered.
Last Sunday, moments after Charlie Kirk‘s widow Erika had publicly forgiven her husband’s killer, Mr Trump told the congregation at his memorial service that he “hates his opponents”.
Twenty-four hours later, he drew fierce rebuke from medical experts by linking the use of Tylenol (paracetamol) during pregnancy to increased risk of autism.
The president treats professional disapproval not as a liability but as evidence of authenticity, fuelling the aura that he is a challenger of conventions.
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On Tuesday, he went to the United Nations, where his frustrations over a stalled escalator and teleprompter failure were the prelude to the most combative address.
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“I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell,” he told his audience, deriding Europe’s approach to immigration as a “failed experiment of open borders”.
Then came a U-turn on Ukraine, suggesting the country could win back all the land it has lost to Russia.
Most politicians would be punished for inconsistency, but Mr Trump recasts this as strategic genius – framing himself as dictating the terms.
It is hard to keep track when his expressed hopes for peace in Ukraine and Gaza are peppered with social media posts condemning the return of Jimmy Kimmel to late-night television.
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Perhaps most striking of all is his reaction to the indictment of James Comey, the FBI director he fired during his first term.
In theory, this should raise questions about the president’s past conflicts with law enforcement, but he frames it as vindication, proof that his enemies fall while he survives.
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Mr Trump has spent much of his political career cultivating an image of a man above the normal consequences of politics, law or diplomacy, but he appears to feel more invincible than ever.
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From funerals to world summits, world peace to public health, he projects the same image: rules are for others.
It is the politics of the untouchable.
