Burke: Here’s a scary thought: What if Trump dies in office?

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, July 16, 2025

By Tom Burke / Herald Columnist

Donald Trump and I are both the same age.

He, and I, will die at some point.

For me, I know the state of my health isn’t 100 percent for my age, but my docs give me (hopefully) at least 10 years more sans some new ailment. But I won’t be a bit surprised if Trump goes before his presidential term expires because for him, we have no earthly idea how healthy he is.

Well, actually we do know he’s morbidly obese; but we don’t know if he has any form of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney problems, cancer in all its many terrors, high blood pressure; or if he’s suffering from early dementia, Alzheimer’s, or — as more than 200 health professionals say, a diagnosis of “malignant narcissism.”

We don’t even know if he has chronic toe fungus, gas, or ever-thinning hair because, unlike most politicians, he’s kept his health a big, big secret, not releasing anything meaningful about his physical condition for more than a decade (including the extent of his wounds by a shot to the head; his mysterious and never-explained rush to Walter Reed in November 2019; or how close to dying he came when he had covid. And yes, Joe Biden kept his condition a secret at the end of his term, but as my old grandmother used to say, “Two wrongs don’t make a right).

But it isn’t his health I’ve been thinking about lately, it’s his death.

And what happens to us (and the world) if he croaks while still in the White House.

‘Cause things aren’t so good in MAGA-land, even with Trump in charge; and the idea of MAGAs running leaderless through the West Wing, the Pentagon, and the Justice Department, etc., sends shudders through my nervous system and has me checking my disaster preparations: water, plenty; freeze-dried food, enough; generator, need more gas; extra scripts, yep; first-aid kit, OK; $100 in small bills, yes; and a half-case of Spanish Rioja, a half-case of Pinot plus odd bottles of single-malt scotch, bourbon, and a half-finished jug of ouzo.

And the idea of his incompetent cabinet secretaries and advisers (i.e. Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller, Tulsi Gabbard, etc.) leaderless (such as Trump’s leadership was) and left to their own devices equals an inevitable joust for power that makes me fear even more for the Republic.

So ask yourself, gentle reader, what do you think will happen if Trump clutches his left arm, falls to the floor, and all the skills of his first responders are to no avail.

For me, first, is the sadness of any person’s passing and sympathy for his family.

Then perhaps the spectacle of his funeral.

But then, the horror of J.D. Vance as president grips me.

And we’ll have a guy, like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, with absolutely no credible experience or success running anything, anything at all, that was meaningful.

Yes, Vance was a senator for two years, but had a meh record. He was a principal of two failed 501 (C) (3 & 4) “charities;” an author of a now-panned book; the go-fer for a tech bro; and a hedge fund “manager.”

But although his views are now strictly MAGA-plus-plus (after spending years publicly trashing Trump) he lacks any control over Trump’s minions and I foresee hand-grenades-over-the-filing-cabinet-skirmishes at every level of the politically-appointed administration.

And all this internecine warfare will be compounded by Trump’s gutting of tens of thousands of competent, and necessary, government workers who might have saved the day with their institutional knowledge and dedication to our country and not to some, now passed, wanna-be absolutist. Add to that the Big Beautiful Bill, its ensuing deep national debt consequences and all the other ills it ushers in.

Then there’s the House with the seven-person Republican majority, split in multiple factions, with a weak, Christian-nationalist speaker and no one to force the GOP vote for anything. It’ll be chaos, gridlock, and failure. Pretty much the same with the Senate: no one to “control” the vote and factions splitting the party so nothing gets done at all.

I won’t spend any time detailing the big-deal roiling revolution against Trump in MAGA land with the three “issues” now causing a fault in the cult:

A new Trump policy sparing swaths of migrant workers from deportations;

The “hidden-by-the-Trump-deep-state?” Jeffrey Epstein files, lists and doctored and missing tapes; and the MAGA outrage to the now suddenly cancelled conspiracy fueled by Trump acolytes ala Pam Bondie, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino; and

Trump’s plan to send more weapons to Ukraine after leading MAGA figures cheered the Pentagon’s decision to halt the shipments (something Hegseth failed to tell the president he’d done. Oops!) and his bombing of Iran.

The domestic consequences of a president’s death would have, to say the least, significant political and policy implications. (See the policies of JFK vs. LBJ.)

The international consequences are just plain scary.

Would China or Russia be emboldened to act against us? You bet. How would North Korea or Iran take advantage of the situation? Or the mid-east terrorists? Would Canada think the time is ripe to make the United States its 11th province?

Donald Trump’s created a situation not uncommon to dictatorships.

The dictator dies, a power vacuum ensues, and chaos reigns.

Personally, I’d like to see more mainstream media coverage of this “what if” nightmare.

If only to alert people to how dangerous and incompetent Trump and his minions are and what his incompetence, cunning and MAGA-news-media-feedback-loop has done to the social order, societal norms, and our democratic republic.

The midterms can’t come soon enough.

Slava Ukraini.

Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.