President Donald Trump arrives to speak about election security during an address to the nation from the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., July 16, 2026. SAUL LOEB/Pool via REUTERS
President Donald Trump's big primetime speech last week was littered with mental "glitches" and "challenges" for him, according to one forensic psychologist, with the relatively short speech showing signs of "legitimate neurological changes" even compared to a year ago, suggesting that he could be showing signs of "sundowning."
On Thursday evening, Trump gave a primetime speech largely dedicated to his long-debunked claims about widespread voter fraud, featuring new claims about recently uncovered documents that he argued would prove that his loss in the 2020 election was illegitimate. Instead, efforts to dissect the actual materials showed no real proof of anything he claimed, while his meager energy and incoherence during the speech reignited the concerns about his fading mental and physical health.
Dr. John Pail Garrison is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist who also moonlights as a content creator, often sharing professional medical insights into Trump's signs of decline and struggle in public appearances and speeches. In a video digging into the Thursday speech, Garrison said that it was evident from his verbal difficulties and lack of energy that Trump had undergone considerable changes, suggesting that it was unlikely that he would have struggled in this way even just one year ago.
Early on in the video, Garrison already noted that Trump showed signs of agitation and frustration, including his frequent habit of bearing or gritting his teeth while speaking. He also noted that the president appeared much less energized and animated than usual, with a lack of his typical hand gestures and a slumped-over posture.
He singled out an instance where Trump jerked his elbow up while saying the word "evidence," suggesting that it "looked involuntary" and arguing that he has been showing more and more involuntary movements lately when experiencing strong emotions. Later on, he appeared to tense his shoulders during certain remarks, showing a level of anxiety that is uncommon for him, a development Garrison called "concerning."
Trump appeared to struggle to find the words he wanted to say, Garrison added, noting his atypical use of filler words such as "like" while going off of his prepared remarks, as he is known to do. This would suggest that he is starting to struggle with the improvisational aspects of his public speaking habits.
As the speech wore on later into the evening, Trump also appeared to have difficulty with pronouncing certain words, even some relatively simple ones like "alarm" and "disclose."
"It's not just one word here and there," Garrison said. "He's doing this a lot."
He added later: "So, what is it that we are possibly seeing? Now, there is always the possibility that we are seeing something like sundowning... For people with neurological conditions like dementia, late afternoon, early evening into the night, people with these issues can become more confused, more agitated. They can be more anxious, there's more emotional distress. Speaking becomes more difficult, there are more word-finding issues... What we're seeing [from Trump] is so dramatically different than just exhaustion that I don't think that adequately explains all the behaviors we're seeing."
