The clearest symptom yet of Trump’s mental decline
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
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The article explicitly calls for invoking Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to remove a president deemed unfit. Most readers know the amendment exists but few understand its history, the complex procedures for invoking Section 4, or why it has never been successfully used to remove a president.
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Disinhibition
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Reich discusses how aging affects 'brain inhibitors' and causes people to lose filters on their speech. The neuroscience of disinhibition—how the prefrontal cortex regulates impulse control and how this degrades—provides scientific context for understanding the behavioral changes described.
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Frontotemporal dementia
11 min read
While Reich doesn't diagnose a specific condition, the symptoms he describes—loss of social filters, impulsive outbursts, personality changes—are hallmarks of frontotemporal dementia, which affects behavior and personality more than memory. Understanding this condition helps readers evaluate the clinical significance of the behaviors described.
Friends,
After criticizing media coverage about him aging in office, Trump appeared to be falling asleep during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday.
But that’s hardly the most troubling aspect of his aging.
In the last few weeks, Trump’s insults, tantrums, and threats have exploded.
To Nancy Cordes, CBS’s White House correspondent, he said: “Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? You’re just asking questions because you’re a stupid person.”
About New York Times correspondent Katie Rogers: “third rate … ugly, both inside and out.”
To Bloomberg White House correspondent Catherine Lucey: “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.”
About Democratic lawmakers who told military members to defy illegal orders: guilty of “sedition … punishable by DEATH.”
About Somali immigrants to the United States: “Garbage” whom “we don’t want in our country.”
What to make of all this?
Trump’s press hack Karoline Leavitt tells reporters to “appreciate the frankness and the openness that you get from President Trump on a near-daily basis.”
Sorry, Ms. Leavitt. This goes way beyond frankness and openness. Trump is now saying things nobody in their right mind would say, let alone the president of the United States.
He’s losing control over what he says, descending into angry, venomous, often dangerous territory. Note how close his language is coming to violence — when he speaks of acts being punishable by death, or human beings as garbage, or someone being ugly inside and out.
The deterioration isn’t due to age alone.
I have some standing to talk about this frankly. I was born 10 days after Trump. My gray matter isn’t what it used to be, either, but I don’t say whatever comes into my head.
It’s true that when you’re pushing 80, brain inhibitors start shutting down. You begin to let go. Even in my daily Substack letter to you, I’ve found myself using language that I’d never use when I was younger, like the word “sh*t” in this subtitle.
When my father got into his 90s, he told his friends at their weekly restaurant lunch that it was about time they paid their fair shares of the bill. He told his pharmacist that he was dangerously incompetent and should be fired. He told me I needed to dress better and get a haircut.
He lost some of his inhibitions, but at least his observations were accurate.
I think older people lose certain
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