Trump’s dementia is getting worse--and it’s long past time corporate media cover it

The corporate media refuses to cover this!

The most popular article I ever wrote for Substack was in April: “Doctors are warning of Trump’s dementia—it’s time corporate media report on this!”

The crux of the article was my interview of Dr. John Gartner--the founder of “Duty to Warn” and a prominent psychologist--who warned that Donald Trump’s dementia was not only apparent, it was getting worse.  Gartner--after ticking off Trump’s mixing people up, fabricating stories because his mind couldn’t recall details and worse-- noted, “Trump is making the kind of memory errors we only see in dementia.” At the time, more than 500 licensed mental health professionals had joined with Gartner in a petition warning that, “Trump evidences a type of cognitive impairment seen in dementia.”

But corporate media ignored this dire warning given at the time they were laser focused on stories about President Biden’s so-called mental gaffes. That of course built to a deafening crescendo after the June presidential debate which ultimately resulted in Biden choosing not to seek re-election.

With the race now between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump, it’s time that the corporate media do their job and examine Trump’s mental competence—especially given a new study just released and Trump’s red flag raising press conference on Thursday.

For starters, an article published Wednesday in the medical publication “Stat” featured a group of experts in memory, psychology and linguistics who detailed Trump’s cognitive decline over the past few years.  Some of the experts compared Trump’s speeches from his time as president to the ones from this campaign, finding that Trump’s 2024 speeches “used more short sentences, repetition, and muddled word order, and the use of extended digressions.” 

The experts said these changes could be attributed to causes “including mood changes, natural aging, or the “beginnings of a cognitive condition like Alzheimer’s disease.” One expert, Ben Michaelis, a clinical psychologist, noted “a certain picture of cognitive diminishment” and more alarmingly, “There’s reasonable evidence suggestive of forms of dementia.” This new report alone should animate corporate media to interview these experts so that voters can have a full picture of Trump’s cognitive decline before casting a ballot.

Then there was Trump’s press conference Thursday that provided a jarring episode that that goes well beyond Trump’s typical lying but appears to be more evidence of Trump’s dementia. This happened when Trump claimed that former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown—who Kamala Harris did have a relationship with from 1994 until about 1996 when he was Speaker of the California State Assembly—had been in a helicopter with Trump that almost crashed. But before that crash, Trump said Brown had trash talked Harris.

This is Trump’s full answer when asked by a reporter about if Brown helped Harris’s career:

TRUMP: “Well, I know Willie Brown very well. In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought, maybe this is the end. We were in a helicopter going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing. And Willie, he was a little concerned. So I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years. But he told me terrible things about her. But this is what you’re telling me anyway, I guess. But he had a big part in what happened with Kamala. But he, I don’t know, maybe he’s changed his tune, but he was not a fan of hers very much at that point.”

After this story was fact checked by many outlets—especially the NY Times—no one could find that Brown and Trump had ever been in a helicopter together.  Yet Trump took to social media to slam the NY Times writing, “Two Failing New York Times ‘reporters’ questioned my story about a forced landing of a helicopter, in a field, with former Mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, and others.” 

Later Friday, Willie Brown himself denied the story as he told CNN, “I’ve never been in a helicopter with [Trump] in my life.” Brown added, “Never happened, period. And I think my memory is probably better than his.”

But that didn’t stop Trump from continuing to insist the story was true. Later Friday night, he called NY Times reportor Maggie Haberman and per her reporting, Trump “vehemently maintained that he had once been in a dangerous helicopter landing with Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, and insisted he had records to prove it.” He even threatened to sue her and the NY Times for questioning his story.

But by Saturday morning, we learned Trump was badly confused about all the key details.  Brown was never in a helicopter with Trump despite Trump’s repeated insistence. In reality it was another Black politician, Nate Holden, 95, a former Los Angeles city councilman and state senator. On Saturday, Holden told the NY Times that he was one in the helicopter when it did experience mechanical trouble and was forced to make an emergency landing in New Jersey.  (This was confirmed by Trump’s own executive vice president, Barbara Res who was in the helicopter.) At the time, Trump was trying to develop properties in Los Angeles and was trying to impress Holden to back his proposal.

Holden joked about Trump confusing him and Brown, “I guess we all look alike.”

But there is more to this than Trump conflating people. Given this helicopter incident happened in 1990, Harris at the time was only in her mid-20’s and a recent assistant prosecutor. That means there was no relationship with Brown at the time and no Brown telling Trump “dirt” on Harris as he claimed. What occurred was that Trump had fabricated a story based on small pieces of factual info—and then when confronted with the truth, continued to insist the alternative reality story was true.

This should not be dismissed as simply another Trump lie. It is clear Trump believed what he was saying was true—that is how dangerously detached from reality he is. Alarmingly, this is what dementia looks like. As Dr. Gartner explained back in April when Trump had repeatedly confused Obama and Biden as well as Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley, “combining or mixing up people and generations” are “tell-tale signs of dementia.” To put it bluntly, Gartner stated this is an “example of demented speech.”

It's not that the media was not told this would happen. Gartner—along with the other mental health experts--warned four months ago, “We're noticing deterioration almost every day,” marked by Trump “becoming more erratic, impulsive and with increasingly incomprehensible speech.” With the pressure building on Trump—especially given his slide in the polls, he will become even more unhinged.

Trump is seeking to become President of the United States who now is protected by “absolute immunity” for most actions thanks to the GOP Supreme Court.  Thus, the need for the corporate media to examine the issue of Trump’s apparent dementia and mental competence is even more acute. Our Republic depends on this.

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