A Boston Globe columnist is sounding the alarm over Donald Trump ’s “obvious cognitive slippage” as the former president faces growing questions over his mental acuity.
Kimberly Atkins Stohr, a senior opinion writer at the newspaper, wrote that Trump’s “diminishing cognitive ability can’t be ignored.”
She pointed to a recent appearance where Trump was asked about the cost of child care and “rambled incomprehensibly for nearly two minutes without answering the question.”
“The lack of context, or even complete sentences, made his comments as clear as mud,” Atkins Stohr wrote. “But what was crystal clear was the decline in the former president’s ability to hold a train of thought, speak coherently, or demonstrate a command of the English language, to say nothing of policy.”
Stohr cited a report in STAT over the summer in which experts spotted alarming patterns in Trump’s jumbled speech.
“There’s reasonable evidence suggestive of forms of dementia,” clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis told the website. “The reduction in complexity of sentences and vocabulary does lead you to a certain picture of cognitive diminishment.”
Atkins Stohr said both the media and Democratic Party leaders pushed President Joe Biden to leave the race after a June debate raised questions about his own mental acuity.
“Yet neither the media nor Republicans have shown that kind of urgency as Trump has repeatedly shown himself to be, to put it kindly, unwell,” she wrote. “That is not only unfair and irresponsible, it is dangerous for the future of our country.”
Read the full column here.
The column comes amid growing questions over Trump’s cognitive health.
Earlier this week, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ― who was close to Trump throughout his presidency, but has since turned into a critic ― said he noticed “ significant declines .” Also this week, Omarosa Manigault Newman , who served in the White House under Donald Trump after previously competing on his reality TV show, said she has seen his “ decline .”
Vice President Kamala Harris released her own health details last weekend and urged Trump to do the same, but he hasn’t.
Meanwhile, the former president has refused a second debate with Harris and cancelled a series of high-profile appearances, including interviews with “60 Minutes,” CNBC and NBC.
The events he has attended have done little to quell the questions, such as a town hall event over the weekend where he cut off questions and played music for 40 minutes as he swayed on stage, pretended to conduct, and occasionally pantomimed some lyrics.
His other appearances have been marked by slurred words, confusion over names and places , and long off-topic rambles even beyond the ones mentioned in the new Globe column.
Trump’s next big event is set to be a Friday evening rally in Detroit ― a city he insulted by name when he was there last week.
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