Trump neurological smoking gun, 99% chance of dementia | Dr. John Gartner

Summary

Psychiatrist John Gartner discusses assessments of presidents Trump and Biden's cognitive health. Gartner argues Trump shows clear signs of dementia based on memory issues, language breakdown, and disordered thinking, while Biden mainly slips on names and dates. Gartner claims the media falsely equates the two by ignoring Trump's incoherence and focusing disproportionately on Biden's gaffes. He asserts medical experts feel Trump likely has dementia but won't speak out publicly now due to fears of professional repercussions or political violence.

Takeaways

• 😊 Dr. Gartner believes many experts observe signs of cognitive decline and dementia in Trump, but won't speak publicly
• 😮 Gartner sees clear difference between normal age-related memory issues and dementia symptoms Trump displays
• 🤔 Trump often lies that his confusing statements are jokes when caught, a common dementia defense tactic
• 😳 Trump exhibits tangential, nonsensical speech indicating a thought disorder characteristic of dementia
• 🧐 Phonemic paraphasias like "Chrismas" show a neurological dysfunction beyond normal mispronunciations
• 😠 Experts tell Gartner they'd lose jobs for assessing Trump, unlike when first warning about him in 2018
• 🤨 Trump’s mixed presentation makes superficial health analysis deceptive to untrained observers
• 😌 Gartner argues Democrats should reassure people about Biden’s competence over replacement talk
• 😣 Corporate media edits out Trump's worst rambling moments while scrutinizing Biden gaffes
• 😡 Gartner wants to raise awareness that Trump's incoherence should be the real headline

Q & A

What is Dr. Gartner's background and credentials?

Dr. Gartner is the founder of Duty to Warn and a former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. He has interviewed many experts in the field of assessing cognitive decline.

What are some of the symptoms of dementia that Dr. Gartner has observed in Trump's speech?

According to Dr. Gartner, Trump shows signs of an inability to use language coherently, such as a lack of awareness when making verbal mistakes, an impoverished vocabulary, repetition, tangential/rambling speech, and phonemic paraphasias.

How does Dr. Gartner distinguish between normal age-related memory issues and pathological cognitive decline?

Dr. Gartner explains that simple lapses like mixing up names and dates are normal with aging, but Trump exhibits confusion about people's identities and generations in a way that indicates pathological dementia.

What does Dr. Gartner say is the reason experts are afraid to speak out about Trump's apparent cognitive decline?

Experts fear professional reprisals or stalled careers for appearing to criticize the president. There is a repressive political climate that punishes dissent.

What is Dr. Gartner's view on the media coverage comparing Biden and Trump's cognitive fitness?

Dr. Gartner feels the media coverage falsely equates normal age-related memory issues with pathological dementia through a "both sides" narrative. He thinks they should focus more on Trump's incoherence.

How does Dr. Gartner counter arguments that Trump seems more energetic or healthier than Biden?

Dr. Gartner explains that Trump's bursts of energy reflect underlying hypomania rather than cognitive fitness. His linguistic breakdowns point to an impaired brain regardless of outward appearance.

What advice does Dr. Gartner offer the Democratic Party regarding concerns over Biden's age?

Dr. Gartner advises reassuring the public about Biden's competence versus raising doubts. He argues Biden compensates well through relying on expert advisers.

What does Dr. Gartner identify as the most important evidence of Trump's cognitive decline?

Dr. Gartner says Trump's phonemic paraphasias (e.g. "beneficiaries" becoming "benefisharies") constitute a neurological smoking gun proving brain damage.

How might the media better cover the issue of Trump's cognitive fitness?

Dr. Gartner urges the media to air extended clips of Trump's tangential, incoherent ramblings rather than only brief gaffes. This shows the severity of impairment.

What is Dr. Gartner's goal in speaking out publicly about his analysis of Trump's apparent dementia?

Dr. Gartner hopes bringing attention to the evidence of Trump's linguistic decline will prompt the mainstream media to adjust their superficial "both sides" coverage of the issue.

Outlines

00:00

😮 Trump showing clear dementia symptoms; Biden just some normal age-related decline

Paragraph 1 summarizes the key perspectives of Dr. Gartner regarding the cognitive health of Trump and Biden. He explains that much diagnosis is based on observation and significant others rather than clinical interviews. He sees clear symptoms of dementia in Trump's confusion of generations and inability to use language properly. In contrast, he sees Biden's issues as more normal age-related decline like forgetting names and dates.

05:02

👴 Further analysis of Trump's language degradation and why we're being 'gaslit'

Paragraph 2 provides more evidence of Trump's language degradation, including reduced vocabulary, incomplete sentences and thoughts, and phonemic paraphasias indicating likely brain damage. Dr. Gartner argues this shows clear differentiation from normal aging, but the media narrative makes a false equivalence between Trump and Biden's issues.

10:05

😥 Sudden changes in Trump's demeanor evidencing intermittent dementia symptoms

Paragraph 3 highlights Dr. Gartner's observation of sudden changes in Trump's demeanor and functioning, analogous to sundowning in Alzheimer's patients. This includes going blank, slurred speech, and failed word retrieval, providing further evidence of underlying dementia.

15:14

😡 Doctors seeing Trump's dementia symptoms afraid to speak out now due to political repression

Paragraph 4 covers why more doctors are now afraid to speak out about Trump's apparent dementia symptoms compared to 2018. Dr. Gartner shares that some doctors fear job repercussions or a repressive political regime if Trump is re-elected seeking revenge.

Keywords

💡cognitive decline

Cognitive decline refers to a gradual worsening of mental abilities like memory, language, thinking, and judgment. Dr. Gartner discusses evidence he sees of cognitive decline in both Trump's and Biden's speech patterns. He argues Trump's decline is more severe and clearly indicative of dementia.

💡dementia

Dementia is a category of brain diseases characterized by impairment of mental abilities. Dr. Gartner believes Trump's speech patterns strongly indicate he has some form of dementia, while Biden's issues seem consistent with normal aging.

💡phonemic paraphasia

Phonemic paraphasia refers to speech errors where a speaker unintentionally substitutes an incorrect sound or sounds within a word. Dr. Gartner cites Trump's frequent phonemic paraphasias, like "Chrismas" instead of "Christmas," as neurological evidence clearly pointing to brain damage.

💡tangential speech

Tangential speech refers to disorganized, rambling speech that wanders between topics without logical connections. Dr. Gartner states this kind of speech is common in dementia and provides a complex example from Trump's remarks about aircraft carriers.

💡Goldwater rule

The Goldwater rule discourages psychiatrists from giving professional opinions about public figures without personally examining them. Dr. Gartner discusses why other experts are afraid to speak publicly about their diagnoses of Trump due to this ethics rule.

💡confabulation

Confabulation refers to fabricated or misremembered memories unwittingly recounted by someone with brain damage or dementia. Dr. Gartner suggests Trump's ramblings show signs of confabulation.

💡baseline

Baseline refers to Trump's past speech patterns and vocabulary when he was younger and mentally sharper. By comparing to this baseline, Dr. Gartner argues Trump's abilities have deteriorated.

💡differential diagnosis

A differential diagnosis draws distinctions between conditions with overlapping symptoms. Dr. Gartner insists the media is failing to properly differentiate normal aging from pathological aging due to dementia in its coverage of Biden and Trump.

💡high/low energy Trump

This refers to clear shifts in Trump's energy level and coherency during public appearances. Dr. Gartner argues this lends further evidence Trump is exhibiting classic signs of dementia.

💡ageism

Ageism refers to stereotyping, prejudice or discrimination based solely on a person's age. Dr. Gartner expresses concern that superficial comparisons of Biden's and Trump's appearances and energy levels promote unfair ageist attitudes.

Highlights

Most experts diagnosing dementia rely primarily on observation rather than clinical interviews or testing

Trump often confuses people from different generations, indicating signs of dementia rather than just forgetting names/dates

Trump claims his obvious misstatements are "jokes" to cover up signs of cognitive decline

Biden shows normal age-related memory issues like mixing up names/dates, while Trump shows clear dementia symptoms

Trump's vocabulary has shrunk, he repeats himself more, and uses simplified language - signs of dementia regression

Trump's "phonemic paraphasias" (e.g. "Christmas" instead of "Christmas") indicate likely brain damage

Trump's tangential, irrational speech and confabulation of disjointed thoughts into incoherent stories suggest dementia

Trump sometimes seems alert but quickly becomes confused/disoriented - a dementia symptom called "sundowning"

The media falsely frames Trump and Biden's issues as equal "age-related decline", ignoring Trump's clear dementia

Biden should reassure people with his personality/humanity rather than planning for replacement due to age concerns

Biden's gaffes don't indicate mental deficiency - he relies on expert advice and wisdom from experience

Trump seems high energy which hides growing signs of dementia that trained doctors can recognize

Doctors see obvious dementia symptoms in Trump but don't speak out now due to politically repressive climate and threats of retaliation

Media edits out Trump's most incoherent rambling rather than showing how serious his mental decline is

The fact Trump can't speak English coherently for 5 minutes straight should be the headline

Transcripts

Speaker 1: It's great to have back on the program.  Doctor John Gartner, who is the founder of Duty to  

Warn and former assistant professor at Johns  Hopkins University Medical School. It's great  

to have you back on, I appreciate it. Speaker 6: Great. It's great to be back. 

Speaker 1: So you were back in the news over  the last week or so, with a number of articles  

quoting your opinions about what is being observed  through the publicly available audio and video of  

President Joe Biden and former President Donald  Trump with regard to potential cognitive issues,  

dementia, gross dementia, memory loss, age  related decline, etc.. So we last had you  

on a while ago. I don't want to totally retread  the perspective you have on the ethics of making  

these assessments. People like to bring up the  Goldwater rule, etc. but as we get into this,  

can you just give us the framework for people  to understand the context in which you're making  

these comments? Neither Trump nor Biden are  people you've personally examined in any way. 

Speaker 6: Sure, sure. No, absolutely. And  actually, I've interviewed a lot of experts  

in this field, most of whom are unwilling to be  quoted, on the record. But, one of the things  

they tell me is, in clinical practice, most of  this, diagnosis is made by observation. And by  

talking to significant others, it's really not  a as much as the clinical interview. And there's  

other things we use as well that we obviously  don't have your MRI's and neuropsychiatric  

evaluation. But what we are seeing is a lot of  clinical symptoms that we know something about,  

even obviously, a lot of the average people know  a lot about these symptoms because they've had  

people in their family who've had dementia. The  things that Joe Biden is evidencing are things  

that I evidence he's been, mixed up people's  names and mixed up dates. That's pretty much  

been the gist of it. And you know what? I'm going  to be 66. I'm accept people's names. I'm accept  

dates. But I still would rather have me as a  psychologist now than the psychologist. I was,  

20 years ago. But you want to talk about memory.  The kind of memory problems that Trump is showing  

are clear signs of dementia. The, Dementia Care  Society said that when people have dementia,  

they begin to confuse people in generations.  Not names and dates, people in generations. 

Speaker 1: So talk a little bit about the  difference. So and we can maybe talk through  

some examples, you know, with regard to Joe Biden.  There was this moment a few weeks ago where he  

referred to the Mexican president as El-Sisi, who,  of course, is not the Mexican president. Or times  

where he seems to kind of, mumble and kind of  trail off, lose his train of thought, or maybe  

look, maybe disoriented on stage. Talk about  that relative to what you observed with Trump. 

Speaker 6: Well, actually, some of these  sort of non-verbal things are a little bit  

hard to characterize. But again, you're talking  about the wrong name, the wrong date. You know,  

I can call my older daughter, my younger daughter,  my older daughter's name. Trump actually,  

on some days thinks he's running against Nancy  Pelosi and and Barack Obama. And I'm not saying  

that to be funny. He's actually confusing people.  On the stump, he said, that he was running against  

the person who was in charge of security at  the Capitol. He said it more than once. In  

other words, he is actually confusing people.  He's not confusing names. And the same thing  

with he said seven times he's running against  Barack Obama. Okay, that's not a slip or a gaffe. 

Speaker 1: Now he says that it's satire. He now  says it's sarcasm and satire meant to suggest  

that Obama is really in charge. Do you buy that? Speaker 6: Not in the least. And he's told that  

lie a thousand times. Whenever he gets caught, he  says he was joking. We know by now that when he  

says he's joking, he's lying about joking. Joking  is the way he covers up his cognitive decline or  

his other, horrible, things that he does in  plain sight. But it's absolutely never true  

that he's joking. And by the way, when you look  at these clips, he doesn't look like he's joking,  

because one sign of cognitive decline is a lack  of awareness that you have cognitive decline  

when you are making these mistakes, you know,  you don't correct yourself because you're not  

aware you've made a mistake. Okay. Whereas I think  a lot of these name situations oh, no, of course.  

Sorry. The other one. You know, you immediately  he shows no awareness of that. And so that's  

actually part of ironically part of the syndrome. Speaker 1: Is there is something that is being  

said in the media about either Biden or Trump  that you think is like flat out inaccurate. 

Speaker 6: Well, yes, because they're they  basically what's happening is we're being  

gaslit again, okay. By a kind of what about ism?  The the narrative in the media, two old men are  

running for president. Is either of them really  up to it? And there's a certain amount of ageism  

actually implied in that, you know, meaning that  if you're old and you're showing some signs of  

an aging brain, you know, you're really not up  to it. But what I'm saying is, we're not making  

the differential diagnosis between an aging brain  and a demanding brain. There's a big difference.  

Okay. And Trump is showing the kind of confusion  not just of memory but of language. He's showing  

a basic breakdown. And this is what all of the  experts are telling me in his ability to use  

language. First of all, we're noticing an enormous  regression. This is someone who used to be very  

articulate with a sophisticated vocabulary,  who spoke in complete, polished sentences and  

paragraphs. Now he has an impoverished vocabulary.  He repeats himself and uses superlatives, which  

are also signs of dementia. And he can't complete  a thought or can't even complete a word. And this  

gets to what I call the neurological smoking gun.  Okay. All of the experts I talked to said nobody  

without brain damage commits these kinds of a  phonemic paraphrases, which we have dozens of  

example of these, you know, blooper reels and  whatnot. Instead of saying missiles as misses,  

instead of saying Christmas, he says Christmas.  These are non words that he's using in place of  

real words that have the stem of the real word,  but he's unable to complete the word. So we just  

kind of garble an ending. And there's lots of  blooper reels, you know. I think Morning Joe  

had one and comedy shows have them when it have  all of his mispronunciations. But it's not a  

joke. It's hard clinical evidence of brain damage.  When I ask these people, do you ever see this in  

someone who is not brain damaged? They said no. Speaker 1: So let me see if I can get the kind  

of big picture of what you are observing. On  the one hand, we're using Trump's own baseline  

from the endless hours of prior interviews.  You look at interviews from five years ago,  

they're very different. You go back to ten and  15 years ago with Dave Letterman or whomever,  

dramatically different. So we're looking at the  base, correct. You're also looking at the fact  

that some of these things aren't so much a verbal  slip, but they're indicative that he's confused  

about the subject matter rather than this is a  verbal or linguistic element. And then you're  

also talking about the phonemic paraphrase for  the beneficiaries instead of beneficiaries or  

renovations that are renovation. And then if I  recall correctly, there's the tangential speech.  

Now talk a little bit about what that means. Speaker 6: Yeah. Thank you for for bringing  

that up because that is another important  component. When people, start to become demented,  

they become more tangential. They ramble and they  go from one sort of unrelated thought to another.  

Sometimes they kind of tie it together in a made  up story. We call this confabulation. And it's  

not lying. It's somehow trying to take all these  disparate things and make a story out of it. And  

I'll give you a recent example. When Trump said  something about the USS Gerald Ford aircraft  

carrier. No one knew why he was talking about  that. And he said, you know, they're not using  

the John Deere Hydraulics hmhm what that means,  and neither do you. They're using magnets. They're  

using magnets. He said they're using magnets. And  that's crazy because magnets melt in water. Okay.  

So when people this is what I mean about the  press, even the press that picked up on this  

magnets melt in water. Comments. Right. Actually,  you need to hear the whole ramble to really  

understand how disordered his thinking has become. Speaker 1: In other words, it wasn't just that he  

got. I don't know that he said the the magnets  melt, but something like if they get wet,  

they stop working or something like. Speaker 6: That, they dissolved. Yeah. 

Speaker 1: You're saying it's not just about a  misunderstanding of how magnets work, it's that  

it was sort of like a series of non-sequiturs  that didn't logically follow from each other. 

Speaker 6: Correct. And that is a formal  thought disorder. That's not a I mean,  

that's something that we. That we're trained  to assess. Okay. And what I'm saying is the  

people who are specialists in the area are  assessing it. They're telling me they feel  

with 95% probability that he has dementia. They  just don't want to sign their name to it because  

they're telling me they might lose their jobs. Speaker 1: Let me ask you about something I've  

observed casually as a as as the son of a  psychiatrist, but not a medical professional  

myself. There seem to sometimes be two different  trumps, and sometimes we call it high and low  

energy trump. Sometimes it's called upper and  downer trump. And sometimes Trump will come out  

and he seems sped up to some degree. And I observe  him doing the tangential speech you just described  

much more frequently. Other times Trump comes  out and he seems almost like depressed, bummed  

out to be there. He's using a lower tone of voice,  speaking very slowly, and seems like he just seems  

sad and depressed to some degree. Now, obviously  people have different energy levels on different  

days. You might be in a good mood or a bad mood.  Who knows what went on five minutes before he went  

on stage? But is is that in any way relevant  to what you're observing or talking about? 

Speaker 6: I'm so glad you brought that up,  because one of the reasons that we're being  

gaslit is I believe that Trump and I've written  about this has a hypomanic temperament. So he had  

biologically he has a lot of energy. So when he's  on he's charismatic. He shows a bullish kind of  

energy. And that is part of his his charismatic  appeal, obviously. But you do see these dramatic  

changes. And now that I mentioned this you will  start to notice it. You notice this dramatic  

change in demeanor like you described when he  can't find a word right before his eyes go blank,  

his jaw goes slack. Suddenly he looks confused.  And then he talks in a slurred way. Yeah. Tries  

to say the word, and sometimes he tries to say the  word several times, like again this weekend. He  

tried to say three years later, but he said, three  years lady, lady, lady. It was like an engine with  

a bad battery trying to turn over. He was just  trying to say later, but he kept saying, lady, he  

was slurring while he was saying it. So in other  words, look just like people with Alzheimer's have  

sundowning, right? They can be fine at one in  the afternoon and then at five, they're they're  

they're off the hook. Okay. And disoriented. Okay.  He becomes momentarily disoriented. And you can  

see it in a sort of the healer. And so now that I  mentioned, it's not just the slip of the not just  

that he's not using the word you can literally see  he's his the lights are out mentally, but someone  

has pulled the plug and he is not there. Speaker 1: When it comes to the Joe Biden  

stuff. It seems to me that in general, if you have  someone who's in their 80s running the country,  

it makes sense to have a backup plan and to know  exactly what happens if X, Y, or Z. Now, with  

presidents, we know that there's a vice president,  and then we have the speaker of the House, etc.  

increasingly, there's a discussion from some about  Joe Biden might not make it to November. And what  

do we do? What is the Democratic Party do? Because  there isn't really a primary being run, etc.. From  

a strictly actuarial perspective, does it seem  logical to you, at least for the Democratic  

Party to have an answer to that question? Speaker 6: You know, I think the Democratic Party  

is very bad at politics. True. And I think that,  I would actually disagree with you. And I would  

take an opposite tack. I think we need to take in  the sense that instead of answering that question,  

we need to reassure the people that Joe Biden is  here. I think he's running sort of a Rose garden  

campaign, and he's he needs to show us Uncle  Joe. Okay. We need to feel like we know him,  

like he's with us. I don't care if he commits  a gaffe. I don't care if he gets someone's name  

wrong. We don't need to be hit. But we need to  know he's with us and he's here. He's actually  

doing a good job, by the way. Speaker 1: I agree with  

that. I agree with that for sure. Speaker 6: And people actually, again, sort of,  

you know, I say to people, look, you know, I  messed up patients appointments. Now I never used  

to do that. I used to have it all in my head, you  know, and I'm calling someone up. Oh. Hey, Joe,  

where are you? Doctor Grossman, I told you, we're  not meeting this week. Didn't you remember? Oh,  

sorry. You know, meanwhile, I'd rather have  me as a psychologist now than the me of 20  

years ago because I'm wiser. Okay. And so  the point is, is. Yeah. Or maybe Joe has a,  

you know, because he's a normal president,  he's got an army of advisers and technocrats,  

right. Backing him up and giving him options and,  and yeah, helping to structure and organize his  

day and his decision making process. That team is  in place. He's using it well and he's using his  

judgment and his wisdom and his humanity. To make  good decisions. Okay. That's really the. I mean,  

yes, anyone can die. That would be really messed  up. But I think there's really a way in which the  

press is really committing a kind of ageism.  You know? Yes, I get it. His voice is a little  

raspy. He's got apparently muscle tension, you  know, from his, the. He recently had a white  

House physical. He doesn't walk with a lot of,  you know, limber sort of, energy. Apparently,  

he's got some muscle stiffness. I mean, meanwhile,  the guy still tries to walk ride his bike at the  

Delaware National Park. God bless him. You know,  he's not. I don't count him out. I think we need  

to see him in. That's my personal opinion. I  don't know, do you? There's no question that your. 

Speaker 1: Do you agree that, but and by the  way, you know, I, I'm essentially, seeing this  

that the way that you are, do you agree that  there's some superficial way you mentioned the  

raspy voice and the moving around, maybe with  a lack of effervescence and and this sort of  

thing. Do you agree that the, the picture of it  all sometimes gives the superficial impression  

that Trump actually is, quote, healthier? And I  know that that's such a fraught term because are  

we talking about mental health, cardiovascular  health? What are we talking about? Do you see. 

Speaker 6: How a lot of energy, you. Speaker 1: See how someone could  

see the two and say Trump seems healthier? Speaker 6: That's why the doctors need to speak.  

That's what I'm trying to explain, is that if  you're not trained you don't know that a phonemic  

pathology is a neurological smoking gun. What you  know is what you see. And so if one guy looks a  

little slower or talks a little raspy, or he looks  like he's got less ability. But what we have is,  

a whole basically, it's like the emperors, the  man who would be emperor has a broken brain,  

and all of the people see it and know it, but  but the people have the authority to say it or  

not saying it because of things like the Goldwater  rule. You know, it's really interesting. There's a  

different atmosphere now than there was in  2018. A lot of the people that spoke out,  

in 2018 are afraid to speak out now. Speaker 1: And what is it exactly  

they're afraid of? Speaker 6: Well,  

one of them has already told me his  promotion's been held up because of his past,  

Trump activities. You know, the thing is, is  that when we first came out, who we defined the  

American Psychiatric Association, you know,  what are they going to do to us? You know,  

you're so brave, doctor. Guard. Just. No.  I'm not. I don't even work for Hopkins  

anymore. They can't even fire me. Speaker 1: But what's happening. 

Speaker 6: Now is this. Yeah, what's changed now  is people feel like this politically violent,  

repressive regime could take over. And there's  an atmosphere of reprisal and revenge and also  

kind of an ethos that that's okay, that maybe  your boss might feel that he could take revenge,  

you know, because that's the new thing you're  supposed to do to the people who, you know,  

say bad things about the Dear Leader. Speaker 1: That is, that is chilling,  

for lack of a better term. And, hopefully at  least we will get a more precise coverage of  

this from corporate media between now and  November. If nothing else, although I'm not  

super optimistic, I have to admit. Speaker 6: Yeah, well, you know,  

one of the reasons I'm sort of getting out  here and saying all this is because, we need  

to get that message into the into the mainstream  media, right? Because right now the narrative is  

just that. They've got this, you know, both side  ism, two old men narrative down pat. And actually,  

there's also a disproportionate way that they  edit the tape. You know, they focus so much on  

every stumble, or, or malapropism of Biden's, but  then they edit it out, the mad rambling rants,  

you know, so if he has a rally and five  minutes of it is incomprehensible, that's  

actually the most important five minutes, right? Speaker 1: The whole thing. Yeah. Well, it doesn't  

fit into corporate media, isn't going to run a  five minute portion of the speech that you would  

need to understand the the rambling context.  They just don't do that. They want 15 seconds. 

Speaker 6: Well even. Right. So part of it, you're  right, is is the time limit. But they rarely show  

the you'll see it on late night television. You'll  see it on Twitter. But you'll won't. You won't see  

it on the 6:00 news. But that's the headline.  The man who's running for president is unable  

to use English coherently. Speaker 5: Right? Wow. 

Speaker 1: We've been speaking with Doctor  John Gartner, founder of Duty to Warn and  

former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins  University Medical School. Always great  

having you on. I really appreciate it. Speaker 6: Yeah. Thanks for having me.