In addition to reported physical deterioration, Trump’s alleged cognitive decline has been observed by his ex-confidants and experts.
John Gartner, a former assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, explained to a news outlet that Trump’s health is visibly deteriorating.
“What we see are the classic signs of dementia, which is gross deterioration from someone’s baseline and function,” Gartner said in August 2025.
“If you go back and look at film from the 1980s, [Trump] actually was extremely articulate,” he continued. “He was still a jerk, but he was able to express himself in polished paragraphs, and now he really has trouble completing a thought, and that is a huge deterioration.”
This mirrors what New York magazine writer Ben Terris shared in an episode of the Today, Explained podcast, noting, “The way he tries to control the narrative, so to speak, of his health is sort of akin to how he’s trying to control everything. I just feel like he’s sort of losing some of that control.”
After a doctor noticed Trump’s signs of dementia, veteran political strategist James Carville said, “You don’t have to be a neurologist or Dr. Jonathan Reiner or anything like that. We’ve all had experience with people aging. We’ve all had this experience. And you could just look at the guy as just an average person and say, ‘This man is deteriorating at a really rapid rate.'”
He added, “I don’t know, I mean, but it’s evident. I mean, Alex Jones sees it, you see, can see it all over the right. Got Megyn Kelly and Tucker [Carlson] fighting with Mark Levin. I can’t even keep track of all of them. They hate each other when they hate us.”