'Severe language problems': Aging expert details evidence of Trump’s escalating decline

U.S. President Donald Trump next to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House, January 9, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

During his speech at the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly confused Greenland and Iceland. And many Trump critics argued that if former President Joe Biden had done that, right-wing media outlets would have been talking about it for days.

Trump's Greenland/Iceland comments, critics said, went beyond a mere gaffe — he sounded like he didn't realize they are two separate countries.

In an article published by Slate on January 26, journalist Anna Gibbs cites Trump's comments on Greenland and Iceland as evidence that he "has been acting a little weird lately, even for him."

"During a recent meeting with oil executives," Gibbs observes, "he spontaneously stood up, walked over to the window to gaze at his ballroom construction project, then returned to his seat. When someone fainted in the Oval Office in November, he barely reacted. He's been dozing off in meetings, which led Dick Cheney's doctor to call for a medical evaluation…. And his speech continues to descend into gobbledygook."

Gibbs adds, "Some of the recent episodes have reinvigorated the conversation of whether it's just Trump being his unfiltered, unbothered Trump self or if it's possible that, at 79 years old, he's showing signs of cognitive decline or even dementia. Joe Biden faced similar speculations during his run for a second term, which, it later came out, were well founded: Biden had been declining due to his age more than was let on."

Carolyn Aldwin, a researcher on aging at the University of Oregon, told Slate that mentally, there are different trajectories with aging: (1) "normal aging," (2) "a little cognitive impairment," and (3) "dementia."

Aldwin told Slate that Trump was a much better speaker during the 1990s, whereas now, he "has really severe language problems." The researcher added, "He can’t complete sentences. He wanders off topic. He gets very confused…. He clearly has difficulties. How severe those are can really only be established by testing."

Read Anna Gibbs' full article for Slate at this link (subscription required).

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