What really happened during Trump's 'Meet the Press' interview

Yesterday I asked a group of eight specialists who have closely watched Trump over the years — two clinical psychologists, a psychiatrist, two medical doctors, and three political advisers — about their reactions to Trump’s interview that aired on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.”

Here’s the part of the interview I asked them to focus on. For those of you who missed it, click to see it.

Today’s Office Hours discussion will focus on what, if anything, this interview reveals about Trump at this point in his second term.

The views expressed by my panel of medical and political experts were thoughtful and nuanced. For the sake of discussion, I’ve grouped them into the following categories:

1. Trump’s behavior was normal for Trump

Several of them said they had seen Trump behave similarly before, so it was normal behavior for Trump. They cited examples of interviews he’s done — both in recent months and also in his first term — in which he was equally angry, defensive, and dismissive. He has walked out of interviews before. They also noted that this was a particularly stressful situation because Trump was facing a national audience and may have had difficulty concentrating because of the rain.

2. Trump is planting the seeds of his strategy for discrediting the midterms.

The political advisers saw in Trump’s baseless assertion that the California election was rigged and his rehash of his lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him as intentionally sowing the seeds of doubt about the fairness of elections in Democratic cities and states. They thought this will be part of his strategy for discrediting the results of the midterms — which Democrats are likely to win. (A Justice Department official says “multiple” probes of California’s elections are now underway, following Trump’s claims.)

3. Trump is showing signs of dementia.

A fourth view is that Trump is displaying clear signs of dementia. During the interview, he had obvious difficulty following a train of thought, recalling factual details, maintaining normal reasoning (even for him), and controlling his emotions. He also displayed paranoia. Even considering the rain and the stressful situation — and even relative to the normal baseline for Trump — he showed early signs of mental decline. “He’s losing it,” said one of the psychologists I consulted with.

Hence, today’s Office Hours question: What do you think Trump reveals about himself in this interview?

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.