Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was on Capitol Hill Monday as members returned from the election for the "lame duck session." Newsmax caught up with him to ask about his thoughts on the results, and he was "entirely unresponsive," according to one expert.
On his YouTube channel, Dr. John Paul Garrison, a clinical and forensic psychologist specializing in body language, said McConnell appears worse now than before.
The unresponsive McConnell "has no capacity to have any meaningful interaction with another person. He has not for a long time. And clearly that remains true. Somehow he seems less responsive, if that's even possible, than he did in the last videos we saw," Garrison said.
He noted that it is very clear that McConnell is unable to perform his job as a U.S. senator. It prompted Garrison to wonder whether the "McConnell situation" could become one of the investigations Democrats conduct in the 120th Congress in 2027.
Garrison went on to comment about Trump's exchange with the press on Sunday night before he returned to the White House from Mar-a-Lago. Over the weekend, Trump announced that Dana White, the CEO of the UFC, would become the new White House press secretary. It prompted questions because another Dana White, a former Pentagon spokesperson under the first Trump administration, could have been considered.
"Well, if you look at — you saw the assistance I called, I posted the greatest wrestlers — and you would have thought that people would have said he's having a good time," Trump said. "I, I, will tell you I was only kidding. I was kidding, of course. When you look at the fighters that I put in — that's why I said some don't come from our country. They come from parts unknown. They come from a lot of areas that are very rough areas. But, so, I was kidding."
While many were likely paying attention to the nonsensical sentence, Garrison said that the body language was an indication to him that Trump was more anxious than usual.
"So there's a couple of things I'm noticing. One is that he seems to almost need reassurance," Garrison said. "This is unusual for him. And I think that what we could be observing is something referred to as sundowning."
It's something that Garrison and others have observed before, and it's frequently something that people with dementia experience. In the late afternoon or at night, there is an increase in confusion, agitation or restlessness.
"This change in personality, it seems like it could be attributed to something like that," Garrison said. "And just look at his gaze. He's barely looking at the reporter. Occasionally glances over but generally speaking is talking to essentially nobody. His eye contact is progressively getting worse. And as I've talked about before, we see that as a progression of certain types of neurological dysfunction and right now we're seeing absolutely abysmal eye contact."
He noticed that Trump is even "rocking back and forth" and "his boldness seems to be gone. He seems to be almost apologetic with how completely ridiculous the idea was to make Dana White press secretary. And as you're about to see with the joint press conference, he meant every word of that offer."
He flipped to the press conference on Monday afternoon with the UFC White and commented that "things are about to get interesting if you were paying attention to what he just said."
In the press conference, Trump made the case for UFC White to be the press secretary, saying "he's done a lot of press."
"So, right now he's talking about the job as though he actually wanted to offer Dana White the job. Not that it was just some joke and of course he was joking. Right now he sounds quite serious about it," Garrison said, playing other clips.
At one point, Trump appears to be struggling to get words out, slurring his words and claimed that White was coming to the White House anyway, which Garrison speculates may not be true, "particularly, when you listen to them talk."
Garrison went on to point out Trump struggling to get his words out, something he's mentioned before, saying that "speaking is a very complex neurological function. So when you are having neurological dysfunction, speaking can be very very challenging."
"Dana White has always been very clear that he has zero political aspirations," Garrison continued. "So, the fact that Trump would ask him in the first place for two people that know each other quite well is very odd. But, as I've talked about many times, I do believe that President Trump gets confused. I think that he has a hard time thinking straight. And so, he makes these bad suggestions. He comes up with these terrible ideas and then he doesn't know how to navigate them."
What White made clear is that he was nowhere near Washington when this all happened, and it was not only a complete shock to him, but he was in London "when [Trump] called me and told me that he had done this and the last 24 hours of my life has been insane."
What White says completely contradicts what the White House has said about this being a joke. It appears there was an earnest effort to get White to be the new Trump press secretary. Trump then claimed he suggested the idea to a group of reporters, which Garrison said misrepresents what actually happened.
"Now, this is where it's getting very interesting," said Garrison. "What Trump just described did not happen. He posted on True Social as I read. There was not some group of press where he sat and said, 'Hey, I should make Dana White press secretary.' And it was some joke, because that's exactly what he said just happened. That's not at all what happened, which goes to show that he may not actually remember what he did. He does not seem able to recall the situation. What this could be is something we refer to as confabulation."
Confabulation, Garrison explained, "is for people with neurological illness or damage, dementia. There's a lot of various issues that can cause something like this. But when there is a gap in memory, the brain just fills it in with something. And right here, he may think that what he's saying is true, but this is very much not true. What he did was post it to True Social. He didn't say it in front of a group of reporters."
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