Just when you thought Trump couldn’t go any lower…

He’s done it: Donald Trump has found a new low. The recent mockery of the Hollywood director Rob Reiner, allegedly murdered in his home by his own son, is not even the bottom of the barrel, awful as the taunt that the Hollywood director died of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is.

Alongside that, we can now add insulting and inaccurate captions to the gallery of images of former presidents in the so-called “Walk of Fame”. The plaques are Mr Trump’s newest installation in the White House, written in Trumpian style. One cites Ronald Reagan as a fan of Mr Trump. Another calls Barack Obama “divisive”. One more calls “Sleepy Joe Biden” the “worst President in American history”.

Not content with turning the Oval Office into a gaudy mess and demolishing the East Wing, he has also demolished presidential history. In that respect, at least he is a true iconoclast. His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, in fact claims Trump is a “student in history”. Is there no beginning to Trump’s talents?

Clearly not. Even by his own standards, his televised address on Wednesday night was an angry, sour, ranty performance that tells us much more about the state of the mind of the 47th Potus than it does about the state of the nation. “Rattled” is an inadequate word to describe the deep insecurity he must feel about his own record in office.

Maybe he truly believes that he is the greatest of presidents, that he really does deserve an A+++++ rating for his management of the economy, and that he has single-handedly ended eight wars in 10 months.

Either way, it cannot be good for America, or the world, that the guy in charge is basing decisions and framing policy – if those are not too kind a description of his executive style – on fantasies and a world that does not exist, but which he would like to.

Some facts: inflation now is at the same level that he inherited from Joe Biden, never “the worst … in the history of our country”, even if “some would say” that. Prescription drug prices cannot be “600 per cent down” because that is mathematically impossible. The price of a gallon of gasoline is nearer $3 than “under $2.50”. There is no basis for the claim that he has attracted $18 trillion of investment into the US. Biden did not let 25 million migrants into America, and the much smaller number is not responsible for the housing and affordability crises.

Nor was the phrase “law enforcement” banned under Biden. Nor was crime at record levels. Nor have other countries emptied their prisons and lunatic asylums and sent the occupants to America. Nor did he win a “landslide” last year. And so we beat maniacally on.

The only thing that was demonstrably verifiable in the speech was the “cheques” for $1,776 that will be sent to a million and a half service personnel, an expensive stunt to mark the start of the country’s quarter-millennium celebrations next year.

Even in that case, the so-called “warrior dividend” is not being paid for by foreign countries but by American consumers, who in effect pay the tariffs that fund the handout. An economist would describe this as a transfer payment from one group of Americans – businesses and people who buy imported goods – to another, “warriors”. The tariff revenues are therefore not being used to reduce America’s vast debts.

A more realistic portrait of Trump than the one that now hangs on the White House wall is contained in the interview his chief of staff gave to Vanity Fair.

Most revealingly, Susie Wiles describes Trump, who is teetotal, as having an “alcoholic’s personality”. This, she explains, from her personal family experience, means that: “High-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink. And so I’m a little bit of an expert in big personalities.” No argument there, and even Trump admits as much (and its significant to note that his elder brother, Fred Jr, suffered an early death from his heavy drinking). But “exaggerated” personalities, and ones with an astonishingly petty, vindictive, vengeful streak, are maybe not the most stable and predictable to be running a superpower.

She now says that Trump is indeed the “finest” of presidents, with “unmatched leadership and vision”, and that “significant context was disregarded” – the clearest, barely concealed admission that she said the things she was quoted as saying. They were taped, anyway.

Soon we will be treated to another choreographed display of life in the inner sanctums of the Trump cult – the Amazon documentary on Melania, mother and first lady. From what little we see in the trailer, we shouldn’t expect to find out that much about her relationship with Donald.

We do hear her sitting in at a meeting and calling her husband a “peacemaker and unifier”, which rather suggests that she, too, is enjoying life in the phantasmagoric kingdom of Trumpland, especially seeing as she seems to spend minimal periods of time in the White House and in his unhinged company. Would that the rest of us could ration our exposure.