President Donald Trump’s cognitive health is deteriorating at a rapid pace, according to a clinical psychologist.
“Look at Donald Trump today, because that’s the best Donald Trump you’re ever gonna see,” Dr. John Gartner, a clinical psychologist and former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told The Daily Beast Podcast host Joanna Coles. “It only goes downhill from here,” he added.
Gartner, who has spoken extensively about Trump’s cognitive health and has suggested that the 80-year-old president has been “showing signs of frontotemporal dementia since 2019,” claims that stress and lack of sleep are having an increasing impact on him week by week.
“Your judgment is poor, your impulse control is poor, and eventually it starts to, if someone has dementia, it starts to further accelerate their cognitive decline,” Gartner said, referring to Trump’s pattern of closing his eyes for prolonged periods at public events.
Last Thursday, Trump slumped to the side with his eyes closed in the Oval Office as a team of aides stood behind him during an announcement on “Beautiful, Clean Coal.”
But it was not only in official meetings that the president appeared to nod off, as he also seemed to drift off during an NBA Finals game in which his home team, the New York Knicks, were playing. “I’m not going to accuse him of snoring, because I wasn’t in earshot, but the brother wasn’t awake,” sportscaster Stephen A. Smith said about the president, a comment that Trump did not take lightly, later attacking him on Truth Social in the early morning hours.
“This really is a perfect storm,” Gartner said, as Coles listed the various stressors the president has experienced this year, which the clinical psychologist said “absolutely also contribute to mental health problems and dementia.”
The president has suffered several setbacks over the past few weeks that potentially added to his stress levels, including the Justice Department announcing that it will abandon plans for a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund; 18 Republicans breaking with him to vote for the Ukraine Support Act; a judge rejecting his attempt to rename the Kennedy Center after himself; and Senate Republicans abandoning efforts to secure $1 billion in taxpayer funding for a White House ballroom.
Additionally, Trump is dealing with the war in Iran, which has continued for more than three months without a deal and has exposed deep divisions within his own party.
Gartner warned that the president has “absolutely no internal restraints” and “no external restraints,” citing his staunch MAGA supporters in Congress. “Basically, the world is now captive to a madman, right?” he said.
Despite reports about Trump’s sleeping patterns, a list of stressors, swollen ankles, and bruising on his hands, as extensively reported by The Daily Beast, a health report issued by Trump’s team in May saw the president’s personal physician write that the president “remains in excellent health, demonstrating strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological and overall physical function,” following a roughly three-hour examination at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Yet Gartner, who has been a practicing psychotherapist in Baltimore for 37 years, disagrees. “This is the sickest individual I’ve ever encountered in my career—and sickest in the worst way,” he said.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement, “If it quacks like a duck, it may actually just be a Democrat hack doctor.”
“President Trump is the sharpest, most accessible, and energetic president in American history and any so-called medical professionals engaging in armchair diagnosis or false speculation for political purposes are clearly breaking the Hippocratic Oath they’ve sworn to,” he said.
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