Trump's Cognitive Collapse is Clear: Psychologist | The Daily Beast Podcast

Trump, because of his cognitive decline, is focusing on things like the. the ballroom and the paper that he writes things on. If any of you have ever had someone who in your family or friends. who had dementia, one of the things you'll notice. is they'll pick up on one concrete physical detail, and then they'll free associate to that detail. completely, leaving the conversation whatever the original topic. of the conversation was. Let's set the stage. He's brought 1200 generals from around the world, right? You know, for this very important meeting. And you have to forgive me,

I automatically go into my Trump voice when I do this, when I have a general. and I have to sign up for a general because we have beautiful paper. Gorgeous paper. I said, put a little more gold on it. They deserve it. I want the paper, not the dead paper. We used to sign that piece of garbage. I said, this guy's going to be a general, right? I want to use the big, beautiful, firm paper. I want to use the real gold writing. After all the work you do to become a general or an admiral, your commission,

that commission is beautifully displayed, and I sign it. You know, I actually love my signature. Everybody loves my signature, but I sign it very proudly. And I think to myself, how can you have an auto pen do this? So disrespectful to me. It's totally disrespectful. As it turns out, almost everything he did was by auto pen, except when he gave his son Hunter a pardon. He signed that one. Actually, it's the worst signature I've ever seen. The auto pen looks better. It's right there in plain sight. We're all seeing it, but no one's calling.

It's like the Emperor has no brain. But the media is afraid to say it. The. The professionals are afraid to say. I. I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. And no one, no one has provoked more comments from you. than our podcast with Doctor John Gartner. He was an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns. Hopkins University for 28 years. He's a psychotherapist in private practice,

and for a long time he had the podcast Shrinking Trump, where he analyzed Donald Trump, the president, through his own words. And his argument has always been that he's actually a very straightforward person. to diagnose for a shrink, because there's so much of him out there. Donald Trump is a man who's been astride the modern media, whatever form it's taken, for. Well, I was going to say hundreds of years.

It feels like hundreds of years, but dozens of years. So actually, there is a baseline against which to diagnose. his thought processes that we see in his weaves. and his endless conversations and press conferences going on right now. So no time to waste. I'm armed with many of the questions that you had for the doctor. We're going to get straight into it. Doctor. Gardner, as someone who's studied psychotherapy, psychiatry, personality disorder, dementia,

over thought from thousands of people, can you give us your, diagnosis again? And then let's see what you've seen. Coming out of Trump's behavior over the last. Month, his personality disorder is a rare, severe personality disorder called malignant narcissism. Malignant narcissism is actually a personality disorder that was first. introduced by Erich Fromm in the 1940s when he escaped Hitler.

And it was his attempt to explain the psychology. of Hitler and other evil dictators like Hitler. So he was meant to describe it as a type. So when I compare Trump to Hitler, what I'm saying is we can argue about, you know, the differences, but the essential similarity. is that they're cut from the same cloth, they have the same personality disorder. And I predicted, before Trump was elected the first time. that he would rule like Hitler. because he has the same personality disorder as Hitler.

And now finally, of course, sadly, we're seeing that he is actually following. Hitler's playbook. Almost to the letter. John, is that the possibility that you're being alarmist here, that the parallels you're making to Adolf Hitler are parallels. that Donald Trump wants you to make because he wants to frighten people. But actually, the fact that you and I can talk openly about this is a sign. that we're not in Germany hurtling towards, 1941 or 1942.

Is this are you confident that the diagnosis you make is not alarmist? Well, I think you're about eight years late with that question. Because when I first. started saying it, I got a lot of pushback from journalists, who are saying, well, come on, it's not like he's. going to form concentration camps, you know, stop calling him Hitler. And I said, no, he will form concentration camps. And I don't know if you remember this, but in his first administration,

he was building out camps in the desert, to keep, immigrants. And, they were building out of capacity for quarter of a million beds. That was his plan. Then with the childhood separation plan, it became so abhorrent. You know, that was the one thing that the country really pushed back on, that he kind of backed off the concentration camp for, for, for immigrants. Now he's going full tilt. I mean, think about this. They're literally just snatching people.

off the street, whether they're citizens or not. Citizens, you know, whether they have I.D. or don't have ID. Masked secret police. Right. Beating people up, smashing their windows, abducting them, disappearing them. Then people can't even find out where they are, putting them in camps. or in the most extreme case, putting them on a plane to death camps. Okay, I often explain that a concentration camp is not a death camp. The internment of Japanese in World War two was a concentration camp. Concentration camp means we're concentrating an undesirable population.

because of their race or their religion or whatever in an enclosed, prison like village. Okay. Or area. That's a concentration camp. It becomes a death camp when you start killing them. So what he's doing with these third world countries is, is outsourcing the death. camp part so they can just disappear people into these third world hell holes, and never to be seen again. So that's just one example of. I don't think it's alarmist.

Okay. At this point, we're like, we're past Kristallnacht, okay? It's not alarmist anymore. It's happening. Just look on social media. I think one of the things that people find very interesting, what you know, when you're reading about history or indeed. when you're looking at what's going on around the world now, is how. can one man manage to amass so much power. and so much sycophancy around him is and you think of Vladimir Putin, who's also managed to create the same environment for himself.

And indeed there are many strongmen, as that, as they're being called. Are they all malignant narcissists? Is that an ingredient that you need to be a strongman leader? Yes. The short answer is yes. That's the type that Erich Fromm was, was talking about. And one of the things that these people do, our colleague Robert J. Lifton recently passed away. He's been studying malignant narcissism and leaders for, like, 60 years. And one of the terms that he came up with is malignant normality.

And malignant normality is when a malignant narcissist. takes control of their society and establishes a new set of norms, establishes a new, reality through propaganda, and basically converts the entire country to their psychosis, converts the entire country to or most of it. to operating under their delusional, destructive beliefs. So that's what's happening right now. The way in which, you know, now all liberals are being labeled as antifa.

You know, recently, Carolyn Levitz said, all Democrats, you know, the only. Democrats are people who are Hamas terrorists and left wing terrorists. And I forget what the other group was. That was truly a disturbing, very strange comment. But the demonization of the opposition, the dehumanization of the opposition, the shutting down of free speech, the the, demonization of an ethnic minority. I've said this over and over again.

as a Jewish person, I need to say immigrants are the new Jews. You know, when my people say never again, we don't just mean. never again to Jews, we mean never again to any ethnic group. And now these immigrants are being treated in much the same way the Jews were. They're being, knocked to the ground, disappeared, put in camps and in some cases, yes, death camps. El Salvador is a death camp. We know from a Braco Garcia.

that they were told over and over again, you will never live outside of this camp. And, we'll talk about this later. But Stephen Miller, I think, is an also an extremely disturbed individual. He is. And I'm not saying this is a joke, a Jewish Nazi, he is actually showing a, identification with the aggressor. It's actually a defense mechanism that Anna Freud identified. where you indentify with your oppressor, you identify with the person who's abusing you. It's a very common psychological phenomenon, actually.

That's why a lot of people who have been abused as children become abusive adults. We're gonna talk about Trump's cognitive decline a lot before the election. People said, well, what's going to happen if he if his dementia gets worse. in the white House is? And I said, well, it's going to be like the weekend at Bernie's White House. Trump, because of his cognitive decline, is focusing on things. like the the ball room and the paper that he writes things on. And, you know, he's sort of meandering about all of these sort of side issues. But the real driver of the Hitler Aryan agenda is actually Stephen Miller.

And I think people need to know that. Perhaps we'll do a special episode on Stephen Miller. and get you to analyze some of his dialog for us. In terms of Donald Trump, he's a malignant narcissist. You say you also say that he's suffering. from some level of dementia. And you gave us some incredible examples. One of which triggered all sorts of people. And this was when he was saying, and I'm going to read it, I'm quoting you here.

He was saying that they're going to send all these immigrants from insane asylums. And then he goes, anyone seen silence of the lambs? And then he goes, the late, great Hannibal Lecter. Nobody likes to talk about him anymore. And everybody remembered that exchange. And your explanation of it being a symptom of dementia was very helpful. Can you explain that? For people who didn't hear it, the first time? Sure. So it's a chain of loose associations, right? So, he's talking, he's telling a lie.

He's saying that all these immigrants are coming from insane asylums. Okay, so that's the malignant narcissism. It's just lying. But then thinking about an insane asylum. reminds him, oh, I saw a movie about insane asylums. Okay. And then that makes him remember the main character from the movie, and that makes him think, hey, whatever happened to that guy? No one ever talks about him anymore. So we're seeing, like, a stone skipping along the water. He's. going from one association to another, but it doesn't make any linear sense. So saying, hey, nobody ever talks about the late great Hannibal Lecter.

Well, first of all, he's a fictional character. We can't be dead. But how did you get there from immigrants coming from insane asylums? Because he had this loose chain of association and is. A loose chain because it sounds like something. because one of the other, one of the other symptoms you. you noticed was that people were beginning to suffer dementia. Can't often say the whole word, so they go crash instead of Christmas. That was an example you gave us. Yes, they it's called phonemic paraphrases.

They can't complete the word properly. So they just kind of add a nonsense ending. So you can't say Christmas, you say Christmas or missiles. Mrs.. Right. And there are dozens and dozens of examples of that, and they're on social media. almost like as kind of supercuts of like things to make fun of him or, right, or to be humorous, but they're actually very serious. signs, very serious and well known medical signs of dementia. People don't make those kinds.

of phonemic paraphrases if they're tired or if they're aging. That's just not something they do. It's something very specific that is linked to, dementia and organic, cognitive decline. And actually, in terms of this sort of sounds like, I think I might have mentioned last time that, you know, someone asked him. a question about Harvard, and then he went on to talk about Harlem, you know, and it wasn't just that he misunderstood the word, because then he goes in back and it circles back. so that, you know, and the people in Harvard and Harlem,

they there really approve of what we're doing at Harvard. So the what they had in common is they begin with H. Other than that, I think we would agree that Harlem and Harvard are very different places. So we've seen a lot of Donald Trump, on the world stage and many stages. I mean, he gives endless press conferences. We simply can't complain that we don't see enough of him. You also referenced sometimes people with dementia have faces of great grandiosity. A man couldn't help thinking last week when he was claiming,

peace in the Middle East. They said it couldn't be done. It's taken 3000 years, but here I am. That that was far from being modest, which a lot of actual peacemakers are. He put himself center stage, and unfortunately, we've already seen a slight outbreak of of fighting over the weekend. And I think a more sort of modest person might have thought this, this might take some time. You can't just because you say it doesn't mean it's going to happen. Well, the grandiosity is certainly part of his personality disorder.

So we do these things interact. So it's easier to kind of in real life they get confused. or they interact with each other. But his cognitive decline is a is a physiological thing. that's been deteriorating now over a number of years. His personality disorder is who he is and who he's always been, although that also gets worse over time. Erich Fromm said that people with malignant narcissism. tend to get worse because with any degree of success, their grandiosity becomes inflamed, their paranoia becomes inflamed.

Their sense that I can do no wrong becomes, disinhibited. Their violence against others becomes disinhibited, both because they feel they can do anything they want. and because they're becoming increasingly grandiose and paranoid. And the other thing is, though, when we see people with dementia, whatever personality disorder they have, tends to get dramatically worse, more disinhibited, more, sort of grossly raw. More primitive. So, I think we're seeing that with him, too.

So we're really seeing is, he has the worst personality disorder. a human being can have, but now, as he cognitively deteriorates, he expresses. it in ways that are more impulsive, more coarse, more disorganized. You know, we can we'll talk maybe about some of his AI videos. I was going to ask you about that when you said, you know, they become more coarse and disinhibited. I mean, yesterday he released an AI video of him. flying a plane over, Times Square,

and then it opening a whole ton of sewage and dropping on the people below that. That seemed something that a nine year old boy is more likely to do. Not the leader of the free world. Right. Exactly. So it shows that kind of disinhibited, it's the real him, you know, I know there's a lot of controversy about the tape. One of the things that I've always or the alleged peepee tape, one of the things I always said about it is whether or not it's true. It's certainly in character because someone with malignant. narcissism wants to defile and degrade,

other people, they get immense sexual pleasure out of it. They're sadists. That's one of the components of malignant narcissism. It's narcissism, paranoia, antisocial personality disorder or psychopathy and sadism. Those four components. So the idea that he really just wants to shit. on everyone who disagrees with him, that's like. literally how he feels because of the personality disorder. The other thing, though, about recent, his recent talks is,

we talked about his confusing Harvard and Harlem recently. He's been confusing India and Iran. You know, he's been talking about Pakistan being at war with Iran, and he's trying to broker a peace. And he says Iran several times when he's talking about India as an example. If you look at Pakistan and. Iran, I told them I was in the midst of negotiating a trade deal. with actually with Iran and Pakistan was going to be in line. Well, of course, one of those two countries have in common, you know, they begin with I.

Right, sort. Of like Harvard and Harlem. So that's the level of free association we're talking about. And he's not just because he's the president and he's got a lot of details. to keep on top of. I mean, I agree that getting India and Iran confused is. is a deadly, potentially a deadly mistake. But but is there any benefit of the doubt you could give him that. he's, you know, trying to master a ton of detail here. Well, look, as an older person, I tend to give people a lot of benefit of the doubt.

I mean, even on my own podcast, sometimes I say, oh, yeah, you know, the person from Germany, you know, you know, what's his name? What's his name. You know, we have to edit that out. But he tends to mish mash them together in a way that shows a deeper level. of thought disorder. For example. The other thing he was saying about, India and Pakistan is saying, well, then he. I think he's starting to say India now. He's saying, well, you know, India has had a lot of change of leadership. They haven't really been stable. That's true of Pakistan. It's not true of India. So first he confuses their names.

Then he confuses the countries themselves their political leadership. and their history. So it's one thing to get a name wrong. Maybe even to reverse it, although that's still seems very rare, but he's actually confusing the countries themselves. Another example of this kind of really clearly demented memory. loss would be when he was negotiating the government shutdown. He met with Chuck Schumer. and Akeem Jeffries, right, the minority leader of the House and the Senate. And he said, yeah, I had a talk with, you know, Chuck Schumer.

And he brought a very nice man with him who I, who I didn't know. He didn't know Hakeem Jeffries. Yeah, he knows Hakeem Jeffries. Okay. He's not an obscure congressman. He's the minority leader. He deals with him on a almost daily basis. This is like when you go to visit your, you know, your mother in the nursing home and you bring your sister. and she goes, who's that nice lady that you brought with you? Oh, honey, that's your daughter. That's my sister. Wow. I mean, it's that level of non-recognition that we're talking about.

And if you are, if you're dealing with someone like this, if you're JD Vance or you're a cabinet member, how is the best. or what is the best way to deal with someone like this? The 25th amendment. All right. Well, let's assume. that let's assume they're not going to invoke the 25th amendment, perhaps because they're too frightened to actually, what are the other ways that you, try to mitigate this behavior? Well, I suspect I've heard that the people don't.

want to be hanging around the Oval Office, that he's so cantankerous. and confused and irascible that it's actually very unpleasant to be with him. And so I think what they're trying to do is sort of mollify him. While the Stephen Millers and the Russell votes, you know, are dismantling the government and, you know, attacking minorities. and destroying our Constitution, he's all in favor of that, but he doesn't have the cognitive capacity to do that. He's delegated that to other people.

And now they sort of have him, you know, designing the ballroom, putting up pictures along the walk near the Rose garden. You know, he's very obsessed with appearances. If they're talking about the gold leaf that he's. painting on the, on the office later, I'm going to read you. his description about the very fine paper that they use, you know, for to, to send, promotions to generals that he talked about at length at Quantico. So I think they can just kind of keeping him busy with, little hateful,

small, hateful tasks while, you know, the blitzkrieg is going on around him. So Michael Wolff, one of our regular contributors and my co-host of Inside Trump's Head, talks about how. Donald Trump won't shut up, that whenever you talk to him, he just talks. And indeed, we heard that he just had a two hour conversation with Putin. And what appeared to come out of that was that Putin said nothing. And Donald Trump just talked and talked and talked, and that if you go. past the Oval Office, he's in there just talking to people that we know.

He loves giving press conferences. Joe Biden would rather be. in the fetal position, hiding on the floor than give a press conference. I think he gave six in his last couple of years. Whereas Trump wants to give sort of a two hour press conference every day. There is nothing he likes more than the sound of its own voice. Is that also a sign? Well, what is it a sign of? Well, it's a sign of his malignant narcissism. He's a narcissist. He he thinks everything he has to say is brilliant and wonderful, even if it is a complete, you know, cognitive trainwreck.

Right? But he thinks everything that emanates from him is wonderful at one point. And how wonderful his signature is. Everyone loves his signature. And so he he goes on and on and on. And this is where the press is really not being honest with us. Right. They will quote a snippet of it. And some of it's the limitations of these short broadcast, but they'll quote a snippet of it sometimes it's a very provocative snippet. where something he's threatening to do, something illegal or unconstitutional,

but what they're not capturing is the meandering, illogical, sort of thought disordered quality of his mentation. that you do hear when he goes on and on for an hour. He just has all of these diatribes, all of these really sort of irrelevant, non-sequitur, you know, side conversations where he just. basically has free associations talking. about whatever he wants to talk about because he thinks he's so wonderful. Anything he talks about is wonderful. And he calls it his weave. Right? Right.

Well, he the weave was a brilliant way to cover up his dementia. because. at some level, he knows his thoughts are completely fragmented, that he can't follow a train of thought, to save his life. So then what he does because he's so narcissistic. because, well, that just shows how what a genius I am. The fact that I can't actually complete a thought just shows how smart I am, because I'm so brilliant that I can just weave all of these. disparate ideas into some new creation. But it's not a manifestation of genius or creativity.

It's a manifestation of pathology and cognitive decline. Okay, so so what are the medications. that we might expect a man of his age to be on? We've seen that he's got swollen ankles that spill over the top of his, his Oxford shoes that, that he loves to wear. We've seen the bruising on his hand and the weird makeup. that apparently he insists on applying himself, which might explain why it's the wrong color for the rest of his hand.

So it's almost drawing more attention to it than less attention to it. But, you know, to be fair, he's almost 80 years old. There's no reason why he wouldn't be on certain medications. What are the sort of typical medications someone like Donald Trump. would be on at this age, knowing what you know about him? So I'm not a medical doctor, but I've done some research into things. that other medical doctors have been saying about, what we know. First of all, there is some strong suspicion that he had.

some kind of stroke around Labor Day. Or it could be a what we call. a transient ischemic attack, which is sort of a minor stroke. And it kind of reverses itself. And the drooping that he had on the right side of his face. At 911, it was very, very evident at 911. It's very evident and it's very diagnostic. There's really almost nothing else other than Bell's palsy, which I don't think he has. That could cause that, there's simply nothing else. It's not aging, it's not fatigue.

It's not, you know, being there's nothing you could do to make someone's face droop. halfway like that other than a stroke. And you mentioned his medication. Now, this is, again, a little bit beyond my Ken, but some, doctors have been saying, well, first of all, he's on aspirin every day. Well, we did used to give aspirin every day for cardiac health. We stopped doing that years and years ago. Now, when we give someone. aspirin every day, it's often because they have had a stroke. And we're trying to, you know, break up any potential blood clots.

He's also on a medication. I try to pronounce this right at at his MBA. They're saying it's to lower cholesterol, but we rarely give that medication. to lower cholesterol. If they're already on cholesterol lowering medication. Unless, again, we're compensating for some kind of stroke. So they're not explaining. I first of all, I don't think they've been. telling us all his medications, but the logical explanation. for that might be that they are trying to, treat a stroke. And the other thing that suggests that is that they brought him back.

to Walter Reed for a second annual physical. Well, if it's a second one, then it would be a semi physical. It wouldn't be a second annual physical. Obviously, it was provoked by something they brought him there. And we we know that they did full brain imagery. We know that they did MRI where they did, Cat scans. Okay. We don't do that unless we suspect that someone has had. some kind of cerebral event. But something we do when we think there's potentially a crisis or a problem. And so the fact that they brought him back,

that they did the scanning, that the medicine suggests the stroke, that his clinical presentation suggests a stroke. It's it's all very suggestive. And how seriously should we take. a stroke in Donald Trump at this stage? I mean, I think we all know people who've had Tias and gone on and been highly functional. Is this something that we now know how to treat? And it's not as serious as it sounds.

I think it sounds serious. I think it is serious, especially given that. that he may be having a series of these, you know, he's having circulatory problems. and he's already showing immense cognitive decline. So all of these things are kind of swirling together, to really make him essentially, I think, to the point. where basically Stephen Miller is going to be the equivalent of Mrs. Wilson, you know, if you remember. Good Lord. Let's hope not.

Yes. And his wife ran the government for, you know, a few months. I think that we're kind of in a mrs. Wilson sort of situation or it's developing into that. How very alarming. So anything that anybody can do and, certain people when you came on last time said, oh, it's impossible. to diagnose someone unless you've sat in front of them and talked to them. Just tell us why you think, actually, with Donald Trump. it is possible to diagnose him?

Well, first of all, people need to understand that it is not actually, part of the ethical code that you cannot diagnose someone you haven't interviewed. It says you cannot diagnose a public figure that you haven't interviewed. This rule was set in the mid 60s when Goldwater sued a magazine. for saying he was mentally unstable, when it wasn't true. And, and embarrass the APA, and they established that rule. But it's only about public figures. In other. words, it's really a kind of a cover your ass thing for the profession,

because we don't want to be pissing off public figures. We can actually make diagnoses because especially in the 80s, we switched. to a different diagnostic system, the DSM three, than it was the three. Now it's five in which we said, oh, psychiatric disorders must be diagnosed by observable behavioral criteria, which means that if I can observe someone's behavior or. if I can talk to someone like a parent or guardian who. who has observed their behavior, I can make a valid diagnosis.

Maybe if they're a public figure. Ethically, you might argue I shouldn't, but I can actually make one. so we don't have to pretend that we can't see what we're seeing. We can't hear what we're hearing. You know, reminds me of that joke about the person who finds his wife in bed with a golf pro. and she says, look, it's not what you think. Who are you going to believe, me? Or you're lying? Eyes are lying. All right. We can see that Donald Trump, is deteriorating. And also, we've actually done studies that his vocabulary has gone.

from an 11th grade level to, like a fourth grade level, that he started. evidencing all of these things like phonemic paraphrases or these, kind of tangential thinking. We seen a massive increase in his, in those sorts of clear. clinical signs of dementia. And, you know, we've talked here about how he, can't complete a thought, how he tabulates and makes things up, how he doesn't remember people.

You mentioned Michael Wolff, Michael Wolff in his original books, that he was there. when he met people he'd known for years and couldn't recognize them. So these are clear behavioral signs. And so we actually can make a diagnosis. And I would argue ethically, in fact, it is incumbent on us to make a diagnosis. because it's protecting, you know, the Goldwater rule is less important. than protecting the population of planet Earth. who are potentially going to be extremely harmed by this person's disorder.

So you make it sound incredibly urgent. And I think a lot of our listeners and viewers would agree with you. What's the logical end of this? I mean, there are. probably many people listening and watching this who've dealt with, relatives, friends, neighbors. who've started down the path of dementia. without any of the personality issues that Donald Trump has. And I think most people would say it, it ends badly as you as you're. watching this, with all the experience you have and all the visibility.

into Donald Trump that that we all have, frankly, as you say, you know, we can see this happening with us. We can see this happening in real time. What is the inevitable path for this? It would be impossible to overstate the danger. It really would be impossible to overstate the grave risk. that all of us are at right now. Because, first of all, he's.

he starts out with a malignant narcissist, and we know that doesn't end well. Right. And he's pursuing the Hitler playbook. But when you add dementia, you know, some people said, oh, well, maybe that's good. You know, maybe he'll be so disorganized. He can't, carry out his evil scheme. Maybe it's a race between his dementia and his malignant narcissism. And I said, no, no, no, first of all, he now has underlings who are willing to do it for him. But also, he's not someone who surrenders power easily. And so he's going to be exercising in ways that are more erratic, more irrational,

more destructive, even look at the way he's been about the tariffs. You know, he wakes up from now, today I'm going to put a 100% tariff on China. Yeah. That's right. That's the ticket. You know. The remarkably good fraction. You know, it's so impulsive and erratic and there's no kind of. And this guy has the nuclear football, you know, I mean, this is really someone who could wake up and in a state of complete confusion. and their kind of irritation, do something catastrophic.

And there's no one who's going to stop him. Right. And we've seen over the last couple of weeks, him suddenly deciding to. to take out with drones, little boats. in the, in the Caribbean. Yeah. That that's a that's a great example. It's it's, it's a blatant violation of our law of international law. It's going to get worse. All right? It's going to get worse. So it's a very gloomy diagnosis from you. Let me ask you something, which we didn't talk about last time you were on,

but I realize I should have asked you, an especially provoked. by what you're saying about the some of these symptoms are really obvious. They're in hiding in plain sight, and we're not taking them seriously. Did you think that about President Biden? Well, no. And I was famously wrong about Biden in many ways. But for the reason that you said they were hiding Biden, you know, you cannot diagnose something if you can't see it, right?

So if it's on display on television, yes, you can diagnose because you can see it, but if it's being hidden, you can't. And so I think one of the greatest services that Biden's advisers. did to the country was, first, they hit him, okay. And then they lied to us and said he was fine. and that he could run for reelection. If you're if he's bad enough that you need to hide him, then he's bad enough that you should gracefully pass the baton. And so the really the debate was a catastrophic moment, right?

Where I mean, I think I must have been one of millions of people who felt their heart drop. right, and sink three floors down, you know, into the next floor. when he was staring at the camera looking like a deer in the headlights. I don't know what his issue is. Because I don't have enough evidence. But clearly there was something there. But with Trump there, it's all on display. Although the exception was around Labor Day when he allegedly had. that potential stroke. Right.

He actually was hidden. from public view for about four days and people were commenting on it. So at that point they may have pulled a Biden, I suppose, and tried to keep him out of public view. But that's the difference is here we have the data. It's right in front of us. So, Doctor Gartner, what else. can your profession do to warn people? Well, one would be to have the balls to do it. Well, you're doing pretty good. You've had a whole podcast, talking about this,

and you certainly been very, open about your diagnosis on our podcast. Yes. And actually, at one point, we actually had a petition. We got hundreds of medical professionals to sign it. But medical professionals are notoriously, risk averse. And the Trump administration is being extremely threatening. So I think people are now more afraid than ever to speak out. And of course, you know, that's one of the ways. a Hitler rises, right, by people being silent. And actually, in this regard,

the American Psychiatric Association is really complicit. in keeping people silent because instead of, abrogating the Goldwater all, they've actually doubled down on it, during the Trump the first Trump administration. and said, not only can you not make a diagnosis, you can't even make a public statement about a public figure. They they stated, because I think they wanted to mollify the, the Trump administration. So, you know, I what when my co-host. got very nervous when you ask ChatGPT is is Trump showing signs of dementia?

And they say, yes. Doctor John Gartner and Doctor Harvey Siegel on shrinking. Trump have argued that he's showing signs of dementia. Like I felt we felt like, the comedians like Laurel and Hardy. when they're in the Army and they say, we need two people. to volunteer for a suicide mission, everyone else takes a step backward. and so they're the ones, you know, they're in the line of fire. I think that if you were to talk privately to, almost any random mental. health professional, they would tell you some version of what I'm saying.

But the there's a tremendous amount of fear out there about stating it publicly. Well, thank you for stating it publicly, here and giving us your diagnosis. And we would love to have you back on the podcast. Really to analyze Donald Trump's behavior. as he inevitably heads towards his 80th birthday and as we see. crazier and crazier things, like the memes that he started doing with AI. And I know you had one example you wanted to give us about paper.

Yes. So when he was at. Quantico, that was sort of an inflection point. When he was at Quantico, you had Madeleine Dean. I mean, you may have seen this, little piece of tape where she confronts. Mike Johnson and she says the president is not well, the. President is unhinged. He is unwell. What are you doing on your side? To. I don't control. Oh my God. Please. And he sort of starts laughing. Well, a lot of people on your side aren't so. Well she's. No no no no no I'm not talking about that. No one else on my side is president. I'm really.

It was reproaching on a very honest and sincere way. The president is not. Well, it was after that Quantico speech. One of the things about the speech was that. he seemed low power, and he took the difficulty of sort. of stumbling on his words, slurring a little bit. That can be a sign of a of a stroke. But also one of the things that happens when he perambulator right around. these issues is what people remembered from Quantico was that. he said, we're going to use the cities as a testing ground. or a training ground for the military, which was a horrible thing to say. Right.

And that's a really signaling. that we're going to establish martial law in the blue cities of our country. It was a very damaging and dangerous, signal as to what he was up to. But what they didn't focus on was how disordered his thinking was. And so, if I may, I just have one paragraph that I typed out verbatim. And this is also typical of what I call his soft thought disorder, which is something if any of you have ever had someone who, in your family. or friends who had dementia, one of the things you'll notice. is they'll pick up on one concrete physical detail,

and then they'll free associate to that detail. completely leaving the conversation, whatever the original topic. of the conversation was. So here it is. Let's set the stage. Is brought 1200 generals from around the world. Right. You know, for this very important meeting. Right. And what is it he has to say? So this is a paragraph, and you have to forgive me. I automatically go into my Trump force when I do this, when I have a general. and I have to sign up for a general because we have beautiful paper.

Gorgeous paper. I said, put a little more gold on it. They deserve it. I want the paper, not the D paper. We used to sign that piece of garbage. I said, this guy's going to be a general, right? I want to use the big, beautiful, firm paper. I want to use the real gold writing. After all the work you do to become a general or an admiral, your commission, that commission is beautifully displayed and I sign it. You know, I actually love my signature. Everybody loves my signature, but I sign it very proudly.

And I think to myself, how can you have an auto pen do this? So disrespectful to me. It's totally disrespectful. As it turns out, almost everything he did was by auto pen, except when he gave his son Hunter a pardon. He signed that one. Actually, it's the worst signature I've ever seen. The auto pen looks better. It's his. Like a sort of. Yeah, it's fascinating. It's fascinating, said that that to you is an example of not a genius. We've. But in fact a disintegration of someone's thinking.

Of course. Exactly. And as you say, it's right there in plain sight. We're all seeing it, but no one's calling. It's like the Emperor has no brain, but the media is afraid to say it. The professionals are afraid to say it. Well, to be fair, I think a lot of the media are saying it. I think YouTube is full of people saying it. I mean, you know, Meta's networks are full of people saying it on Instagram.

On Facebook, people are saying it on X, so it's not as if people aren't saying it. But there's something about Donald Trump that. Well, perhaps I should be asking you this. Is there something about him that still appeals. to people because of this sort of peculiar rambling. and weaving and occasional flashes of humor? I just have to correct you at one thing, though. It's the independent media that's reporting it. I would challenge you to show me something at ABC,

CBS, NBC, CNN, where they're talking about his cognitive decline. I was going to ask you about his comments. So we have another one like the the paper one, which is the most brilliant thing, which is when he says, we know a lot about the drones, we know. a lot about the jets, the great ones, the B-52s, which were totally stealth. They were undetectable on the B-52s. From when are they from the 60s? We know a lot about the drones that we know. a lot about the great jets, the great ones, the ones. Well, and the B-52s, which were totally.

And that was stealth. You've just been critical. of the mainstream press, saying they don't cover this. How how do you cover it? Well, first of all, you ask the question, right? In other words, okay. Let's say you don't want to diagnose someone that you haven't met. That's fine. But if you see, if you if this were your grandfather. or your father and you were seeing these gross signs of cognitive decline, you might not diagnose him, but you would run, not walk to a neurologist.

or a neuropsychologist, probably both, and say, evaluate this guy. Tell me what's going on. Okay, so at this point of the press, we're being honest. And they're not we would have doctors. It wouldn't necessarily me, but doctors who are at least be asking. the question, are we seeing signs of cognitive decline? Does this piece of behavior suggest cognitive like, does this memory loss suggest cognitive decline? Does this, you know, nonsensical, meandering about paper?

At least ask the question. We're not even asking the question. Okay. Doctor Gardner, thank you so much for your, most recent diagnosis of the president. And I hope you will come back and analyze his behavior over the next month for us. I'd be happy to thank you for having me. Thank you very much. So there you have it. The diagnosis has not improved.

Very much. Want to get your comments? We would love Doctor Gardner to come back in a month or so and give us his thoughts. on how the next month plays out, so please send us your comments. Don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast. We are independent media so we appreciate your support. Please subscribe to the podcast wherever you get them. You can join the Daily Beast community if you like and get special access to me. to Mike or hopefully to Doctor Gardner, in the next few weeks and months.

And don't forget whatever our first lady is saying, beast. And we will see you back here, inside Trump's head tomorrow. That's Tuesdays. Thursdays when we've just added one on Saturdays. and we'll be back with the Daily Beast podcast on Wednesday. And a shout out to our top tier beast members Karen White, Heidi Riley, Connie Rutherford, Sharon Shipley, Andrea Hodel and Free DC. Thanks to our production team Devin Roger Reno and Yvonne, Ersan.

and Jesse Millwood.