Democratic strategist James Carville is sounding the alarm over what he described as a troubling change in Donald Trump, arguing that the 80-year-old president is “deteriorating.”
On a new episode of the Politicon podcast, Carville said that Trump appears increasingly disengaged from the job.
“The guy doesn’t want to do the job anymore. He’s just on autopilot,” Carville said.
The noted strategist went even further, saying, “He is not right right now. He’s deteriorating. He doesn’t like the job. He’s obviously getting bored with it.”
“I think the man is in his final convulsions,” Carville added.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
Doubts about Trump’s health have been circulating since the beginning of his second term, which has brought a string of erratic public moments—from social media tirades and rambling speeches to frequent blowups at reporters.
There have also been physical warning signs, including instances in which he has appeared to fall asleep, walked unsteadily, or displayed prominent bruising on the backs of his hands.
Trump and his physicians have insisted that Trump is in peak physical fitness.
His personal physician, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, wrote in a memorandum in June that the president “remains in excellent health, demonstrating strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and overall physical function.”
But Carville has said previously that something isn’t quite right.
“Something is wrong here,” he said in an interview with MS NOW in June following Trump’s third “annual” physical assessment in the space of 13 months.
“This guy goes to Walter Reed more than I go to the bathroom,” he added. “I mean, there’s something here that’s just not adding up. And I’m not sure that we know what it is, but I suspect at some point we will know.”
Meanwhile, the 80-year-old president was described by his aides as even more “erratic” than usual in June, according to The New York Times.
And in August, aides told CNN that the president had little interest in traveling the country to campaign for vulnerable Republican candidates ahead of the midterms.
By early September, he had instead held an unprecedented midterm convention in Dallas, where candidates were expected to come to him.
At that convention, Trump made a desperate bid to boost Republican support ahead of the midterms amid polling showing his party could lose control of the House and maybe even the Senate.
Trump said he would give every adult American $5,000 if Republicans retain control of both houses of Congress—a plan estimated to add $1.35 trillion to the national debt.
