Donald Trump is exhibiting a “massive increase” in “clinical signs of dementia,” exacerbating the president’s “malignant narcissism,” a psychologist has warned.
Dr. John Gartner told The Daily Beast Podcast that the 79-year-old’s nonsensical speeches, repeated confusion, and frequent lapses in memory are flashing signs of his “immense cognitive decline.”
The former Johns Hopkins professor said the president’s deterioration is only disinhibiting his “grandiosity” and “paranoia” and warned that, with the nuclear football in Trump’s possession, “It really would be impossible to overstate the grave risk that all of us are at right now.”
Gartner presented Trump’s address to top military brass last month as Exhibit One of how “disordered” the commander-in-chief’s thinking is, noting his similarity to dementia patients who “pick up on one concrete physical detail” and then “free-associate” away from the original topic.
Trump’s speech at one point veered abruptly from discussing Marine morale to “Biden’s autopen,” before finally landing on a wandering tangent about “gorgeous paper.”
“When I have a general and I have to sign for a general because we have beautiful paper, the gorgeous paper. I said, ‘Throw a little more gold on it, they deserve it.’ Give me—I want the A paper, not the D paper. We used to sign a piece of garbage,” he said, proceeding to gush about his own signature.
“Everyone loves my signature,” he told the nation’s 800 top generals.
Gartner told host Joanna Coles that “because of his cognitive decline, [Trump] is focusing on things like the [White House] ballroom and the paper that he writes things on.”
“We’re seeing a stone skipping along the water. He’s going from one association to another, but it doesn’t make any linear sense,” the co-host of the podcast Shrinking Trump said.
Trump has become prone to a speech phenomenon called “phonemic paraphasia,” where words are left incomplete and finished with a nonsense ending, Gartner argued.
Last week, Trump claimed that he had halted a “nuclear” war between Iran and Pakistan, repeatedly mixing up Iran and India without noticing the mistake.
“It’s one thing to get a name wrong, maybe even to reverse it,” Gartner said. “But he’s actually confusing the countries themselves.”
Trump, the oldest person ever inaugurated as president, conjured up several other fake conflicts in his self-absorbed and ultimately fruitless bid for the Nobel Peace Prize.
He insisted he had “solved” an imaginary conflict between Cambodia and Armenia—two nations 4,000 miles apart, just days after bragging he’d stopped a showdown between Azerbaijan and Albania, apparently meaning Armenia.
“People don’t make those kinds of phonemic paraphasias if they’re tired or if they’re aging,” Gartner said. “It’s something very specific that is linked to dementia and organic, cognitive decline.”
According to Gartner, Trump’s “clearly demented memory loss” was evident when he forgot House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ name just a day after meeting with him last month to discuss averting a government shutdown.
Speaking to reporters, Trump discussed his talks with “Chuck Schumer, who was here yesterday, along with… uhh, the, a very nice gentleman who I didn’t really know. You know who I’m talking about.”
Gartner observed, “This is like when you go to visit your mother in the nursing home and you bring your sister and she goes, ‘Who’s that nice lady that you brought with you?’… I mean, it’s that level of non-recognition that we’re talking about.”
Trump has previously confused Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi, invented bogus governor Kristi Whitman, and lost track of important milestones in his life.
The psychologist said he believes that Trump displays “malignant narcissism,” a rare and severe personality disorder marked by paranoia and sadism that has been used to describe dictators such as Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein.
Trump, who declared “I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them” at Charlie Kirk’s memorial, posted an AI video over the weekend depicting him bombing “No Kings” protesters with feces.
“The idea that he really just wants to s–t on everyone who disagrees with him, that’s literally how he feels because of the personality disorder,” Gartner said, explaining that in people with dementia, personality disorders tend to get “more disinhibited, more grossly raw.”
He predicted that as Trump advances in age and tenure, he would exercise his power in ways that are more “irrational” and “destructive.”
“This is really someone who could wake up and—in a state of complete confusion and erratic irritation—do something catastrophic,” Gartner said of the president, who has also faced mounting questions over his physical health due to his bruised hands and swollen ankles.
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