US President Donald Trump catches a helmet on the day the final steel beam goes into the ballroom, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, November 4, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump's first appearance after Republicans suffered a huge loss at the polls left one doctor scratching his head after he made some strange gestures.
Dr. John Paul Garrison, a clinical and forensic psychologist and body language expert, caught the moment and zoomed in on Trump's arm movements. He's noted this before about Trump; at times, it truly appears as if Trump doesn't have full control of his limbs and mouth.
When his ballroom construction crew gives him a hard hat, "we're seeing him engage in some strange behavior in his mouth as well as his arms. All of it appears to be involuntary," Garrison said.
"His behavior before and after gives me no indication that that was a voluntary behavior. And as I've talked about many times, there can be multiple reasons for something like this," he explained. "Whether it's a focal aware seizure, whether it's something related to some form of dementia or vascular dementia or something similar, or whether it's related to scarring in the brain after a stroke, there are a wide variety of neurological reasons we might see something like this."
Garrison began the video by cracking a joke that since it was Trump's first speech after his huge midterm loss, he talked about unifying America. Garrison then noted he was kidding; Trump only talked about his ballroom. Typically, when Trump talks about his construction and craft projects, he is excited, but in the speech Wednesday he was fairly low-energy.
"Now, if you've watched my channel before, you've probably seen that I've talked extensively about his apparent neurological decline," Garrison said. "And part of that is having limited insight, having poor judgment, being grandiose. And this right here, what we're observing right here, speaks to all of those."
The psychologist said that Trump rambling about columns shows just how bad his judgment is. Which, Garrison said, is the main reason he's been doing these videos.
"He may neurologically be incapable of having good judgment at this point," he said. "And that's part of the point I'm trying to make with all of these other videos is that while his behavior is absurd, some of it may be that there is dysfunction that's so bad he's not capable of making better decisions at this point. It certainly doesn't excuse any of this behavior, but hopefully helps you make sense of how it could be so profoundly absurd."
Garrison noted that even if the event was scheduled before the historic election losses, it doesn't change that this being Trump's first remarks shows "how poor his judgment is and his inability to think through critical situations, his inability to use critical thinking at all."
