In a striking interview, Dr. John Gartner, an acclaimed psychologist and former professor at Johns Hopkins University, expressed alarming concerns about President Donald Trump’s cognitive health. During his appearance on “The Dean Obeidallah Show,” Gartner shared his belief that the president is exhibiting signs of dementia and could face a significant cognitive decline before the end of his current term.
Gartner made a provocative comparison, stating, “Here’s the thing, will he become impaired enough that they need to invoke the 25th amendment? Yes. Will they invoke the 25th amendment? No.” He went on to suggest that the White House could resemble a farcical scenario similar to that depicted in the film “Weekend at Bernie’s,” saying, “We are going to have a Weekend at Bernie’s White House. They’re going to be wheeling him around, but don’t think that he can’t get into trouble. He will.”
The psychologist elaborated on his concerns, noting, “It’s going to go from a farce to tragedy or from tragedy to farce, but it is going to get more and more absurd.”
Supporting his assessment, Gartner pointed to what he perceives as classic signs of dementia affecting President Trump. He remarked, “Basically, what we see are the classic signs of dementia, which is gross deterioration from someone’s baseline and function.” He emphasized the importance of this observation, particularly in relation to the president’s verbal abilities, stating, “If you go back and look at film from the 1980s, he actually was extremely articulate. He was still a jerk, but he was able to express himself in polished paragraphs.”
In contrast, he noted, “Now he really has trouble completing a thought and that is a huge deterioration. His vocabulary has deteriorated, but also he has started to show very specific signs of phonemic paraphasia, for example, where he routinely can’t say an English word so he substitutes a non-word that is easier to pronounce that sounds like it.”
Gartner mentioned there are “dozens of examples” of Trump displaying these cognitive issues, arguing, “It’s not a big thing, but it is a diagnostic sign, and this is why it is important to have doctors evaluating these things.”
He highlighted the difference between normal aging and the concerning signs of dementia, stating, “People don’t do that. Yeah, you and I, we have memory problems, we are getting older. We forget things. That’s not the same as starting to use non-English words and to substitute for English words because we have trouble forming the whole word. But he has trouble forming a whole concept.”
When asked about the implications of having a president exhibiting these signs, Gartner remarked, “Well, we are starting to see that. One thing is we are starting to see people cover for him.” He pointed out instances where the media and others seem to ignore Trump’s erratic statements, saying, “Everyone is acting like it’s perfectly normal when he says these completely crazy things.”
He recounted a specific example: “Like, remember when some reporter asked him about Harvard and academic freedom? He went on to say, ‘Well in Harlem, the people really love me. I got a lot of the Black vote, but they don’t like what’s happening at Harvard either, that’s why they are protesting in Harlem.’”
Gartner noted that this type of statement is indicative of cognitive issues, explaining, “He goes back to the people in Harlem are actually protesting what’s happening at Harvard. It’s like how he does the weave. You know, the weave was a brilliant way he had for explaining his thought disorder.”
Continuing, he clarified that this is not merely a verbal misstep, stating, “It’s really an example of what we call tangential thought, where he goes off on loose associations.”
Gartner emphasized the necessity for the media to address Trump’s cognitive decline more openly. He stated, “By covering it for one thing. They’re not covering it at all. I mean, look before the election we had an enormous amount of trouble getting them to address Trump’s cognitive decline.”
He continued, “They were very focused on Biden’s and that’s a whole other story, and they ignored Trump’s. And now that he is president, and he’s intimidating all of these media outlets, they’re terrified of him.”
In his discussion, Gartner recognized patterns reminiscent of dementia, stating, “The thing is that to a doctor or to anyone who has ever had a relative with dementia, this is very familiar because these ideas are sort of adjacent to each other in your associative track.” He noted further examples of Trump’s erratic expressions, suggesting that they reflect a disorientation in time and context.
He pointed out how this confusion manifests: “So, all these things kind of blend together, you know, Putin is the head of Russia, Russia was our ally in World War II so Putin fought in World War II so why are people so mad at Putin, he fought in World War II?”
Gartner elaborated, “He was our ally. And he kept saying Putin fought as if he was a veteran of World War II. So, in other words, it’s crazy. It’s what we call a confabulation, which is when patients with dementia have gaps in their memory, they have loose associations, and they do a weave. They do a weave, but they weave these loose associations into a made-up story that isn’t reality.”
The psychologist expressed concern that the situation appears to be worsening, stating, “I predicted before the election that he would probably fall off the cliff before the end of his term. And at the rate he is deteriorating, you know … we’ll see. But the point is that it’s going to get worse.”
Moreover, he observed a change in Trump’s physical coordination. Gartner remarked, “He was very coordinated, and now he really does have trouble getting up the stairs. He does trip and fall. It’s not just a gotcha thing, ‘Oh he tripped on the stairs.’ No, his gait is slow. He is falling.”
In conclusion, Dr. John Gartner raised significant concerns about President Trump’s cognitive health and the implications of his condition, stating that the signs of cognitive decline are becoming more pronounced. “I mean, there was so much material, and then for a while when he became president it kind of went dark,” he said, reflecting on the president’s ability to mask his issues in the past. Gartner expressed a worried outlook about the normalization of Trump’s behavior, questioning, “I keep thinking now there’s no bottom to our normalization that he could just be sort of babbling and everyone would say, ‘Oh, you know, that’s Trump.’”
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