Personally, I’m still angry about what was done to President Biden and the implicit and explicit ageism with the attacks on Biden over the summer. In retrospect, the media and the party’s disgust with Biden’s age is so even more hypocritical given the fact that Donald Trump is absolutely losing his mind on the campaign trail. He waddles from event to event, lying and rambling and talking about the late, great Hannibal Lector. He keeps canceling interviews and events, with his staffers privately confirming that he’s exhausted. He’s clearly in terrible health and his cognitive decline has been evident for years. And yet, there’s barely any media appetite to cover any of that or do anything but sanewash this very ill man. That’s why Kamala Harris has begun really pressing the issue as she campaigns, and she’s basically challenged the media to give Trump the “full Biden treatment.” Few media outlets have done so, but at least the Associated Press is trying:
Still, Trump’s public appearances are often marked by rambling. He regularly confuses timelines, events and people.
At a town hall-style forum in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Trump seemed to have no recollection of meeting with a severely injured veteran and his family. The veteran’s wife noted that “you visited with him many times” and “you just saw him this summer.”
Trump has also confused Republican rival Nikki Haley with former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He confused the location of a major military base. He mistakenly said that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán led Turkey.
During a meandering news conference riddled with false and misleading statements in August, Trump recalled riding as a passenger in the chopper with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown when it was forced to make an emergency landing. Brown later said he had never shared a helicopter with Trump. Instead, it was likely a Los Angeles city councilman, who is also Black, who shared a rocky helicopter ride with Trump decades earlier.
And more recently, at a rally in Wisconsin, he seemed to squint at teleprompters as he lurched from subject to subject. He described the country as a “third-world hellhole.” He then told his audience, “Remember, there’s a hat that’s made that sells like crazy,” before interrupting himself to comment on a fly. “Oh there’s a fly, I wonder where the fly came from. See, two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. You’re changing rapidly,” Trump said.
He has begun boasting about his “beautiful body” and describes his often long-winded speeches as “flawless.”
Trump regularly acknowledges questions about his age and health during public appearances. On Sunday in Arizona, Trump mocked critics who declare him “cognitively impaired” because he “mispronounced a word.”
“They say, He’s cognitively impaired!” Trump teased. “No, I’ll let you know when I will be. I will be someday — we all will be someday. I’ll be the first to let you know.”
The AP also consulted various doctors who were like: yeah, I don’t treat Trump, but I can tell you that he’s cognitively impaired. It’s that obvious to everyone, especially from his public behavior and his speech patterns. I also have a theory that not only is Trump exhausted, he’s bored. He’s tired of campaigning. He finds it boring nowadays. He’s not getting the same rush he used to get, possibly because his rallies are poorly attended and he can see his “supporters” leaving early. He doesn’t want to make those speeches anymore.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.