Trump's Senior Moments Are Getting Worse

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18 hours ago

Donald Trump's bizarre combination of speech mannerisms, physical quirks, and garish physical appearance has over the past decade of his political career has often functioned as teflon.
The president's absurdist, abhorrent political persona is endlessly mockable — as Saturday Night Live or any late-night host can attest — but it's also a key component of his increasingly authoritarian politics, and his presentation only seems to be getting worse.
Trump is the oldest man to assume the presidency in the history of the United States. The man he succeeded, former President Joe Biden, had to abandon his reelection bid over widespread concern — and a wealth of evidence — that he was too old to hold the nation's highest office. Biden's apparent decline dominated the summer of 2024 and has continued to be a story into Trump's second term in office. Meanwhile, Trump's innumerable gaffes and otherwise troubling behavior — like when he cut a town hall event short to play music videos and sway onstage less than a month before the election — were largely written off as Trump being Trump.
The 2024 election cycle was defined not only by Trump's scorched-earth comeback to the White House, but by a heated Democratic Party debate over Biden's age and physical decline, the gerontocracy that has entrenched itself in power, and the duty of care those surrounding a leader in decline have to advise that leader not to try to hold onto their office at the expense of their constituents.
In the case of Trump, the president is not, today, the same man who first assumed office in 2017. He has new health issues, less self control, stronger authoritarian impulses, and visibly looser skin. His clear physical aging has been accompanied by a string of gaffes and senior moments that can no longer be excused by the trappings of his public persona.
If the standard — as Trump has himself stressed repeatedly in reference to Biden — is that a president's cognitive decline is a disqualifier and a potential liability, it's worth taking a look at the man currently sitting behind the Resolute Desk and some of his more egregious senior moments in his second term as president.
Trump told false story about his uncle teaching the Unabomber
Remember when Biden told that insane story about fighting Corn Pop (who was a 'bad dude') and it produced a whole news cycle about how the aging president could be losing it? Well this should have been Trump's 'Corn Pop' moment.
Earlier this month, while addressing attendees at a Pennsylvania energy summit, Trump told a bizarre story about his uncle, former Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor John Trump.
'[Ted] Kaczynski was one of his students,' Trump claimed, referring to the prodigal mathematician turned hermit and serial mass murder known as the 'Unabomber.'
'That's a smart man. Kaczynski was one of his students. Do you know who Kaczynski was?' Trump said. 'There's very little difference between a madman and a genius. But Kaczynski, I said, 'What kind of a student was he, Uncle John?' — Dr. John Trump. He said 'seriously good,' he said he'd go around correcting everybody. But it didn't work out so well for him.'
Basically nothing about this story — outside of Trump's uncle being an MIT professor — was true.
Kaczynski was not a student at MIT. Ever. He got his undergraduate degree at Harvard, and completed his masters and doctorate at the University of Michigan. John Trump died in 1985, more than a decade before Kaczynski was caught and identified as the Unabomber. It's extremely unlikely John Trump would have known him, and there is no reason Trump would have asked his uncle about Kaczynski.
Trump said he was surprised Jerome Powell, whom he appointed, was appointed
Trump built a career on firing people. He loves it, it gives him a thrill. There's one man in D.C. he apparently cannot fire: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. And it's driving him up the walls.
Powell was appointed to his position as Fed chair in 2018 by Donald Trump, and ushered the American economy through the turmoil of the Covid-19 pandemic, and a subsequent period of persistent inflation that battered consumers. Despite the Fed having mostly gotten a handle on inflation, Trump has been publicly fuming (and threatening to fire) Powell for months now over his refusal to cut down interest rates — partially in response to Trump's inflationary tariffs and pinball economic policies.
Earlier this month, Trump complained that Powell was 'a terrible fed chair.'
'I'm surprised he was appointed, I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him,' he added.
Biden did reappoint Powell — but it was Trump who initially appointed him. At this point, though, it seems that blaming his predecessor is so reflexive for Trump that he's erased his own appointments from his memory.
Trump dumped on his own trade deal
During his first term, Trump regularly made a point of criticizing the North American Free Trade Agreement and exalted his own negotiations of a new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement as the work of a diplomatic and economic genius. Until he forgot about it.
'I look at some of these agreements, I'd read them at night, and I'd say, 'Who would ever sign a thing like this?'' Trump said of past economic trade deals in North America during his tariff frenzy in the spring. 'So the tariffs will go forward, yes, and we're gonna make up a lot of territory. All we want is reciprocal. We want reciprocity.'
Other nations best beware. Negotiating a trade deal with the White House in order to avoid a punishing tariff regime may be only a temporary solution, as the president may soon forget he even signed it.
Trump called the prime minister of Japan 'Mr. Japan'
There are very basic expectations to being a head of state. One is remembering the names of your international counterparts, even if only for a few minutes in front of a camera.
Should you forget, say, the name of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, the conventions of the English language provide several alternatives that would allow one to avoid outing yourself and forgetful or ignorant. The 'prime minister of Japan' or 'prime minister' would likely suffice. Not — as Trump chose to blurt out — 'Mr. Japan.'
'Dear Mr. Japan: Here's the story,' Trump said during a June interview with Fox News on his proposed deadlines for tariff deals with foreign governments. 'You're going to pay a 25 percent tariff on your cars.'
The Trump administration ultimately did figure out whom they needed to address their letter to, and struck a deal with the Japanese government to avoid the implementation of ruinous tariffs.
Trump said he's going to spend time in Florida when asked about detainees in Alligator Alcatraz
During a press conference following his visit to a Florida detention center built deep in the Everglades — a location chosen for its outright hostility to human life — Trump was asked by a reporter how long he expected detainees to be held in the center before being deported.
The president instead responded with a bizarre rant about how he would be spending plenty of time in Florida, how much he loved the state, and how nice it was for the reporter to think of him.
'This is my home state. I love it. I love your government. I love all the people around, these are all friends of mine,' Trump said. 'I feel very comfortable in the state. I'll spend a lot of time here.'
The president added that he had a 'very nice little place, nice little cottage,' in Palm Beach — a reference to his Mar-a-Lago luxury golf club. He then bemoaned that many people were leaving cities like New York to come to places like Palm Beach and states like Florida.
'But thank you very much. I'll be here as much as I can — very nice question,' he concluded, leaving the actual question unanswered and the room confused.
Trump rambles about trophy wives and yachts during West Point commencement
During a commencement address at the West Point, Trump advised graduates of the prestigious military college not to marry a trophy wife.
In the middle of a bizarre tangent about William Levitt — a man who made boatloads of cash pioneering the American suburb — Trump lamented that Levitt's second marriage didn't work out so well.
'Could you say a trophy wife? I guess we can say a trophy wife. It didn't work out too well,' the president rambled, perhaps amid a series of flashbacks to his own marriages. 'But it doesn't work out too well, I must tell you. A lot of trophy wives, [it] doesn't work out, but it made him happy for a little while, at least.'
'But he found a new wife,' Trump continued. 'He sold his little boat. You got a big yacht. He had one of the biggest yachts anywhere in the world. He moved for time to Monte Carlo, and he led a good life.'
Trump told the same story during a separate commencement speech at the University of Alabama, discussing Levitt's marital disappointments and advising graduates that they 'have to know when your 'momentum time' is up — I call it 'momentum time.''
Unfortunately, for both the young and the elderly, taking one's own advice can often be the hardest lesson to learn.
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