Donald Trump's age-related issues, which have seemingly accelerated during his third run for the White House, received a thorough analysis by the New York Times on Sunday which came to the conclusion that the former president appears to have debilitating memory issues along with bouts of confusion.
Long criticized for blanket coverage of President Joe Biden's decline following his alarming debate performance with Trump in June that led to the president stepping aside for Vice President Kamala Harris to run in July, on Sunday the Times' Peter Baker and Dylan Freedman scrutinized Trump's downward spiral over time.
As they noted Trump recently rambled on about the audience at his debate with Harris applauding his every move –– despite the fact there was no audience.
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As the report notes, "Anyone can misremember, of course. But the debate had been just a week earlier and a fairly memorable moment. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention."
Adding Trump "rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished," the Times reporters reported that an analysis of Trump's speeches before adoring crowds revealed some alarming signs of cognitive decline.
"Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like 'always' and 'never' than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age," the Times is reporting. "Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change."
According to one former ally who has known Trump for years, there are definitely signs of cognitive problems.
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"He’s not competing at the level he was competing at eight years ago, no question about it,” explained Anthony Scaramucci. “He’s lost a step. He’s lost an ability to put powerful sentences together.”
Former Trump White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews agreed, telling the Times, "I don’t think anyone would ever say that Trump is the most polished speaker, but his more recent speeches do seem to be more incoherent, and he’s rambling even more so and he’s had some pretty noticeable moments of confusion. When he was running against Biden, maybe it didn’t stand out as much.”
With the Times report adding, "Experts said it was hard to judge whether the changes in Mr. Trump’s speaking style could indicate typical effects of age or some more significant condition," Dr. Bradford Dickerson, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School explained, "That can change with normal aging. But if you see a change relative to a person’s base line in that type of speaking ability over the course of just a few years, I think it raises some real red flags.”
"His speeches in 2015 and 2016 were more aggressive, but still clearer and more comprehensible than now, and balanced with flashes of humor," the report notes before cautioning, "Now his rallies are powered as much by anger as anything else. His distortions and false claims have reached new levels. His adversaries are 'lunatics' and 'deranged' and 'communists' and'“fascists.' Never particularly restrained, he now lobs four-letter words and other profanities far more freely. The other day, he suggested unleashing the police to inflict 'one really violent day' on criminals to deter crime."
You can read more details here.
