According to i Paper video comparisons between President Donald Trump’s first campaign a decade ago and his appearances today, there is evidence of “significant decline” in his mental capabilities.
In a new Netflix docuseries Dynasty: The Murdochs, footage of Trump’s political ascension features prominently. It shows, for example, his first Republican primary debate, in which — from the vantage of today — he comes off as coherent and offensive, the combination of which proved highly effective at defeating his political opponents.
But watched side-by-side with his recent performances, and it becomes clear that there has been a noticeable “cognitive decline.”
“A lot of people are increasingly concerned about Trump’s mental acuity right now,” says Dr. David Andersen, associate professor in US Politics at Durham University. “His public appearances are clearly growing less focused, more rambling, and less clear about what he is trying to communicate.”
As evidence of this, look at the relative clarity with which Trump spoke 10 years ago versus how he speaks today.
In the debates of 2015 and 2016, says i Paper, Trump was clearly the dominant force on the stage, tearing down his opponents while raising issues that resonated with his then-growing base. He proved to be particularly adept at turning the tables on his attackers.
In the Netflix documentary, for example, it shows a clip in which host Megyn Kelly points out that Trump had “called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.” Trump’s quick retort — “Only Rosie O’Donnell” — delighted his audience.
Through this and other examples, it becomes clear that while Trump may have frequently spoken in an offensive manner, he at least tended to be coherent and effective in his rhetoric. But that is no longer the case a decade and two administrations later, as there is now “growing concern about his physical and mental capacity.”
In January, Trump became the oldest American president ever inaugurated. Since then, he has repeatedly ranted about his “aced” cognitive exams and “perfect health,” but there is ample evidence to suggest his decline.
There were several examples in a single day this week. First, Trump confused his signature motto “drill, baby, drill” for a 1950s energy company’s slogan “dig we must.” He then claimed that he’d spoken to a previous U.S. president who told him “I wish I did what you did” in regards to Iran, an assertion denied by all living presidents. Then he capped things off by forgetting the identity of the interim president of Venezuela — a country his invaded just three months ago — saying, “The president has done a really good job, we get along with him really well," forgetting that said president was in fact a woman, before referring to the Irish president, who is also a woman, as a man.
All of that happened within a single day, and there seem to be new examples of Trump’s diminishing mental faculties daily. Previously he has called his tendency to ramble between subjects with limited coherence “the Weave,” but this hardly explains the increasing frequency of nonsense.
And Americans are noticing. After rambling his way through his latest State of the Union — the longest in history — polls showed that 61 percent of viewers thought Trump had “become erratic with age,” and that included one third of Republicans, and that the percentage of Americans who believed the president was “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges” had plummeted from 54 percent to 45. A later poll showed a stark increase in those who felt Trump had neither the mental sharpness nor physical health to serve effectively, with over half of Americans agreeing that he isn’t up to the challenge.
Even those from Trump’s inner circle see it.
As former Trump attorney Ty Cobb said, “He’s always been driven by narcissism. But I think the dementia and the cognitive decline are, you know, palpable, as do many experts, including many physicians.”