On Thursday, a widely cited psychologist warned that during his most recent rallies, President Donald Trump displayed “glitches” that suggest some severe form of “neurodegenerative disease.” According to Dr. John Garrison, not only has Trump been “struggling tremendously lately,” but his condition is “getting worse.”
Garrison begins by noting that Trump’s recent symptoms have included involuntary vocalizations, confusion, motor issues, and disinhibition – all suggestive of major cognitive decline. During the president’s rallies in Texas on Wednesday, asserts Garrison, these “strange behaviors” were on full display, including “what appears to be seizure-like activity,” and “the frequency of this behavior is getting worse” as it’s now happening at “almost every single rally.” While reviewing footage from Wednesday, Garrison noted that what once was the occasional twitch has progressed to an “entire body spasm.”
Indeed, as Trump is in the middle of railing against Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, he suddenly appears to spasm and stammer. “You could hear the interruption in his voice,” says Garrison, “but if you watch the body, if you watch his left hand, you actually see it moving up his arm to his face to the other side.” Zooming in on the footage, as Garrison suggests, it’s clear that the spasm begins in Trump’s hand before passing through his entire body as he has trouble speaking. According to Garrison, “It's the exact same pattern I've pointed out over and over again: one limb, to the eyebrows, to the voice, to the other limb. We have seen this pattern repeatedly over the past few months.”
As the recording continues, Trump launches into a tirade about Talarico being a vegan, mispronouncing the word as “vagan.” In Garrison’s estimation, “I know that he's joking right now, but I don't think that the word of vegan was necessarily a joke. I think that he is just coming up with strange words because I don't think his brain is functioning properly right now.” Immediately after that, as Garrison notes, Trump stutters while saying “Second Amendment.” According to Garrison, “He’s struggling again. He's struggling to get these words out.” Then Trump’s next line is “completely incoherent. That last statement made absolutely no sense in this context. And I think that he's getting lost right now because that really makes absolutely no sense.” Garrison argues that “this could be related to a wide variety of issues, whether it's recovering from a stroke or something like vascular dementia or another type of dementia.”
Moments later, the footage shows Trump “glitch” while trying to say the name of Republican senatorial candidate Ken Paxton. As the president speaks, his left hand gives a sudden twitch, and for a moment it seems that he’s frozen. “What you're observing is a spread of this neurological dysfunction,” explains Garrison. “You're seeing it spread throughout his body. You can hear it in his voice, that part is very obvious, but if you pay attention to his hand, you can see it there as well.” What’s more, “For a very brief moment there, it appeared that he couldn't speak.” From there, Trump displays a number of similar spasms, and at some point says something that “made absolutely no sense.”
“What's so concerning about some of these language production issues is that they are located in different areas of the brain than some of the motor issues,” warns Garrison. “And so what we're talking about is dysfunction in multiple areas, and this dysfunction seems to be very pervasive. We're seeing it over and over again… He seems to be consistently having more and more significant word-finding issues.” According to Garrison, all of these symptoms “could be attributed to some type of neurodegenerative disease. Whether we're talking about vascular dementia, whether we're talking about a lesion that's occurred due to a stroke, there are a wide variety of problems that could be contributing to this behavior, but all of them are quite concerning, and they do seem to be progressing and getting worse.”
