On Thursday, a widely cited psychologist suggested that new videos of President Donald Trump reveal symptoms of dementia, stroke, or another serious condition. According to Dr. John Garrison, not only does Trump display signs of “neurological illness,” but his symptoms are getting worse.
Garrison begins by reviewing a clip of Trump meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as the latter disembarks from his flight. Suddenly a plane does a loud flyover, eliciting a noticeable wince from Trump. “It is obvious that he's uncomfortable,” says Garrison, “But the question that's being overlooked by most people is, why is he uncomfortable?” According to Garrison, neurodegenerative disease manifests itself with clear behavior changes over time, and this is an example, as Trump typically enjoys and applauds such occurrences, and has even spoken previously about how much he loves noise. But as Garrison notes, “What we've seen over the past few months is he is getting extremely sensitive to sound. And we see this with dementia. We see this after strokes sometimes.”
To emphasize his point, Garrison plays a previous recording of Trump enthusiastically watching a flyover, saying, “I have seen President Trump react to so many situations like this, and I have never seen him react like that. So, to me, this is very clear evidence that something is going on.” What’s also telling, he asserts, is Xi’s reaction. “He essentially has no reaction,” while Trump winces painfully. “I don't think that he has the neurological ability to tolerate it anymore,” says Garrison. “We see this with dementia all the time. People with Alzheimer's type dementia, for example. They get very agitated by loud sounds.”
From there Garrison moves on to footage from the arrival ceremony, noting that on a 65-degree day, Trump is the only one dressed for extremely cold weather, wearing a heavy coat and gloves. “Just someone being cold or sensitive to cold obviously does not necessarily indicate some sort of neurological illness,” admits Garrison. “But given everything else we've talked about, everything else we're looking at, I think it's at least worth pointing out that temperature regulation, perception of temperature, the ability to perceive hot and cold appropriately can be affected when someone has dementia, when someone has had a stroke, depending on where there's been injury in the brain. So, while his apparent sensitivity to cold is not, in isolation, going to say that he has some sort of neurological illness, given everything else we're looking at, it's at least worth pointing out.”
From there, Garrison notes that Trump appears to “struggle with motor coordination,” explaining that “he’s looking down to make sure he's walking straight” and fails to course correct when he bumps into Melania. “He appears to be attempting to walk straight, but he just can't,” says Garrison. “I think that there's a lot of motor coordination issues right now.” Moving on to the next recording, Garrison spots more health red flags while Trump speaks with the press. “His breathing is heavy,” says Garrison. “He seems like he's struggling to make eye contact. It's just very peculiar. As you can hear, he's almost having a hard time catching his breath.”
This is far from the first time someone has suggested that the president may have a neurological condition. According to his niece, psychologist Mary Trump, “Alzheimer’s runs in my family. I sometimes see similarities between Donald and my grandfather, Fred Trump, who developed Alzheimer’s sometime in his late seventies or early eighties, which is to say when he was around Donald’s age.” She made this claim in early September, telling a story about how she once saw her declining grandfather have a moment of panic in which he didn’t seem to know what was going on. “I’m beginning to see that look in Donald’s eyes sometimes,” she concluded.