His Physical and Mental Decline Are Linked
It’s also in the interest of America and the world that he
be physically and mentally able to discharge the duties of his office.
So we have reason to be concerned about Trump’s visit to
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center early Tuesday for what the White
House called a “routine annual dental and medical assessment.”
Trump turns 80 next month. I feel entitled to comment on the
practical meaning of this milestone because I’ll also turn 80 next month (he
was born 10 days before me).
Let’s just say that reaching it doesn’t mean altogether good
things, unless you consider the alternative.
Even in a healthy person, small things begin to break down
as one approaches 80. Everything takes just a bit more time and effort. Joints
ache. Energy isn’t quite as abundant.
The 80-year-old mind isn’t as quick. The frontal lobe’s
capacity to remember names goes to shit. (Yesterday, I could barely remember
the name of a garage mechanic whom I’ve known for nearly half a century.)
Taken separately, such minor frailties are typically no more than a personal frustration, but they begin to mount up. In a president of the United States, they can pose a major challenge to the nation and world.
But even “PERFECTLY” is a relative concept for someone
ending his seventh decade and beginning his eighth, who’s the oldest person to
assume the presidency and the second-oldest to hold the office. (Joe Biden was
82 when he left in 2025.)
Presidents aren’t legally required to release their medical
records, but, given the effluvium of lies in which Trump permanently floats,
we’d be excused if we didn’t entirely trust this PERFECTLY report.
Plus, there are his bruised hands, swollen ankles, bouts of
drowsiness, exceedingly long blinks during official meetings (some call them
“naps”), and erratic — if not off-the-charts weird — behavior.
Add in the frequency of his health “checkups.”
Tuesday’s visit to Walter Reed was Trump’s third in-person doctor’s visit in a little over a year. His first physical of this term of office was in mid-April last year. He returned in early October for a “semiannual physical.” In early January, he had what was described as a brief dental appointment. Earlier this month, another dental appointment. Followed by his return to Walter Reed on Tuesday for his third “annual” physical in 13 months.
Consider also the shifting explanations. In July, Navy Capt.
Sean Barbabella, Trump’s physician, explained that bruises on Trump’s right
hand were “consistent with minor soft tissue irritation from frequent
handshaking.” The explanation seemed plausible until the bruises spread to his
left hand.
Then there’s the changing story about Trump’s scans. In
December he told
reporters that he’d had an MRI in October but wasn’t sure what part of
his body was scanned. “It wasn’t the brain,” he said, defensively, “because I
took a cognitive test and I aced it.” Barbabella then issued a memo explaining
it had been a scan of his heart and abdomen, and that in both cases the
advanced imaging was “perfectly normal.”
In January, Trump altered
his story to say it was a CT scan rather than an MRI. Why? Trump being
Trump, he doesn’t want anyone to know anything about his health that might
reveal something he fears enemies and critics might see as a weakness.
“In retrospect, it’s too bad I took [the scan] because it
gave them a little ammunition,” Trump said. “I would have been a lot better off
if [I] didn’t, because the fact that I took it said, ‘Oh gee, is something
wrong?’ Well, nothing’s wrong.”
What’s he afraid of? Probably that the American public will
catch on to his rapidly diminishing capacities.
Three years ago, according to a Washington
Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, only 28 percent
of the public thought Trump insufficiently healthy to hold the nation’s highest
office. Earlier this month, the same poll found that 55 percent of the public
thought his health insufficient for him to serve effectively.
Behind the public’s mounting worries is a growing sense that
Trump isn’t mentally all there.
Physical and mental health aren’t easily separated,
especially as one reaches 80. I often can’t remember where I put my wallet and
keys or why I’ve entered a room. I also have less patience than I used to. I’m
less tolerant of long waiting lines, automated phone menus, and Republicans.
But if Trump can’t remember where he put, say, a top-secret
memo or why he entered the Situation Room, or if he expresses bizarre
impatience, it’s a potential risk to the nation and world.
Worse, Trump is exhibiting clear symptoms of dementia.
“Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be
living in Hell,” Trump exploded on his social media Easter morning, adding an
Islamic prayer to the end of the post.
The following Tuesday he threatened that unless Iran struck
a deal in 12 hours, its whole civilization would die.
When Iran shot down two U.S. airmen, aides who were getting
minute-by-minute updates reportedly kept Trump out of the Situation Room
because they
believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful, a senior administration
official said.
Then came Trump’s rant against the pope.
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.
… I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all
MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn’t! … Leo should get his act together as Pope,
use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great
Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s
hurting the Catholic Church!”
During a subsequent Q&A with reporters, Trump doubled
down: “I don’t think he’s doing a very good job. He likes crime, I guess. … I
am not a fan of Pope Leo.”
Days later Trump posted an AI-generated portrait of himself
as a kind of American Jesus. When this caused a wave of criticism and outrage
(much of it from fundamentalist Christians), he insisted he was portraying
himself “as a doctor, making people better.”
Rather than helping Republicans in the upcoming midterm
elections by, for example, embarking on an “affordability tour” (as White House
aides have urged him to do), Trump has been on a “revenge tour” against
Republican members of Congress he deems insufficiently loyal — a gambit that
may cost Republicans dearly in the midterms.
At yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump touted the primary
wins of Republicans he endorsed, including yesterday’s Texas victory of Ken
Paxton over incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn.
Paxton carries more baggage than the U.S. Postal Service —
including abuse-of-office allegations from his top staff, an indictment for
securities fraud, impeachment by Texas’s Republican House, and an ongoing
divorce initiated by his wife, who alleges adultery — which will help the
Democratic challenger, James Talarico.
Yet Trump insisted at the Cabinet meeting that “I don’t care
about the midterms.” He was referring to Iranian officials who “thought they
were going to outwait me” by relying on mounting political pressures to force
him to give up, but he might as well have been talking about the blowback from
his revenge tour.
Trump ended yesterday’s Cabinet meeting with further
evidence of his mental decline in another rant against Somali-Americans. “The
Somalians, what they’ve done to Minnesota, the Somalians, crooked as hell.
Ilhan Omar, crooked as hell,” he said, in reference to the Democratic
congresswoman from Minnesota. “They’re all crooks, and we got them, we got
them. Now we’re putting the clamps on,” Trump said.
His antipathy toward Somali-Americans is growing, with his
dementia. In December, weeks before ICE went on a rampage in Minneapolis, Trump
claimed Somalis made Minnesota a “hellhole,” saying “the Somalians should be
out of here. They’ve destroyed our country.” Of Somalia-born Omar, Trump said,
“she shouldn’t be allowed to be a congresswoman, and I’m sure people are
looking at that. She should be thrown the hell out of our country.” A day
earlier, he called the congresswoman “garbage,”
saying he didn’t want Somalis in the U.S.
Can you imagine any other president of the United States
singling out a group of foreign-born Americans like this? Of course not.
The evidence continues to mount. Trump is both physically
and mentally incapable of discharging the duties of president of the United
States.
The sooner the 25th Amendment is invoked, or he is
impeached, the safer America and the world will be.
Robert Reich is the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. His book include: "Aftershock" (2011), "The Work of Nations" (1992), "Beyond Outrage" (2012) and, "Saving Capitalism" (2016). He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, former chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." Reich's newest book is "The Common Good" (2019). He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.
