U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks to the media on the day of a NATO leaders' summit in Ankara, Turkey, July 8, 2026. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Since Monday, a clip of President Donald Trump making a bizarre claim has circulated the internet, renewing speculation that the aging commander-in-chief is afflicted with cognitive decline.
Trump was speaking at a General Motors plant in Milford, Michigan, praising American automakers, when he lapsed into an anecdote about his father, Fred Trump, who died in 1999, that left onlookers scratching their heads. “I had a wonderful father, right, and he was a hard worker who was in the real estate business ... He didn’t want planes,” said Trump. “They didn’t have planes in those days, I don’t think.”
It suddenly seemed to dawn on him that he was off-topic, prompting him to reference his famously rambling manner of address, saying, “Just to mention, you know, it’s called the weave, right? I go from one — we always get back to the right subject.”
Commentators were quick to point out the confused statement.
“Trump claims that airplanes didn’t exist when his father was alive,” posted political commentator Ed Krassenstein.
Fred Trump was born in 1905 and died in 1999, and as critics pointed out, the Wright Brothers famously made the first powered flight two years before he was born. According to the Daily Star, “Aviation didn’t just exist during Fred Trump’s life, it dominated it, spanning World War II air warfare, the rise of commercial jet travel and even Concorde. Others piled on with more detail, noting the first commercial flight was a 17-mile hop from Tampa to St Petersburg in 1914 — when Fred Trump was nine.”
“Facts are stubborn things,” noted one commenter. Others, however, suggested that this could be evidence of Trump’s mental decline.
“Senility has a MAGA voice,” posted one. “He clearly inherited his father’s Alzheimer’s gene,” suggested another. And wondered yet another, “Do narcissists lie because they believe that people just take what they say as the truth without checking?”
This is far from the first time speculation has been raised about Trump’s mental health. The confusion apparent in the 80-year-old president’s recent speeches has had some suggest he may be “sundowning,” with even his ostensible allies warning that dementia has him “off the rails.” According to one source inside the White House, “Donald is deteriorating before our very eyes. His physical and mental health is in decline. Those around him don’t know what to do about it. It can only get worse. He’s 80 – and it’s showing.”
As a neuroscientist explained last week, there has been “growing interest in Trump showing progressing signs of dementia, notably FTD,” as well as “Malignant Narcissism.” And while the president hasn’t been officially diagnosed, the neuroscientist says there is a clear “psychological pattern” suggesting Trump has some form of “neurodegenerative disorder.”
