Americans desire two seemingly contradictory qualities in their presidents: They want them to be sharp enough to make the world’s most difficult decisions, but old enough to have the life experience befitting the nation’s highest office.
President Trump’s detractors have raised concerns that he doesn’t quite fit that first category. There are already some publicly available reasons to worry about Trump’s health: Besides being the oldest president ever elected, he’s overweight, appears to subsist on a junk-food-heavy diet, and avoids exercise.
Pointing to the confusing grammar of Trumpian utterances like, “... there is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign, but I can always speak for myself—and the Russians, zero,” STAT News asked neurologists to review Trump’s speech. They found he is now using simpler words and sentences than he did in the 1980s, which could be a sign of cognitive decline.
The latest speculation that Trump’s mind might be deteriorating came this week, when the president appeared to slur his words during a speech about Israel. (It was dry mouth, his spokesman said.)
At the daily White House press briefing Thursday, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump “does have a physical scheduled for the first part of next year, the full physical that most presidents go through. That will take place at Walter Reed [National Military Medical Center], and those records will be released by the doctor following that.”