Donald Trump, the oldest person in American history to be inaugurated as president, is increasingly showing signs of cognitive decline. His speeches, social media posts and interactions in the Oval Office are often characterized by disjointed thoughts, rambling incoherent responses to questions and angry tirades that he called for the execution of political opponents, labeled an entire ethnic group as “garbage” and regularly hurls personal insults at White House reporters.
In his second term, Trump has been observed sleeping during Cabinet meetings, walking aimlessly during trips abroad and exhibited confused behior in various settings. After a Novo Nordisk executive collapsed in the Oval Office on Nov. 6, the president stood up, turned away from the frantic efforts to aid the man, stared blankly straight ahead and appeared frozen or catatonic.
Dr. John Gartner, a psychotherapist and author warns that Trump’s more frequently observed bizarre behior are symptoms that point toward a personality disorder, exacerbated by unmistakable signs of dementia. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with John Gartner, founder of the group Duty to Warn, which brought together mental health professionals that issued warnings about the impending peril of Trump’s presidency. Here he talks about the danger Trump’s dysfunction and cognitive decline poses to the nation and the world—and questions who in the White House is now actually making decisions for the country.
JOHN GARTNER: We know that these behiors are part of diagnostic syndromes that are very, very dangerous, and it’s right there in front of our eyes. And really, the media has been sort of gaslighting us by acting as if this is somehow some either unknowable thing or only irresponsible, unethical psychologists would be making these wild statements. Even if you’re not a professional, you can see that these are incredibly destructive and damaging behiors. Now, what we’re seeing though is a collision of his personality disorder with his ongoing, I think, very clear signs of dementia. And when people develop dementia, if they he any kind of personality disorder or personality problem, they become dramatically worse. Whatever their personality disorder is, it becomes dramatically worse. It becomes more aggressive, more impulsive, more disinhibited, more disorganized and that’s what we’re seeing here. He’s still the same sick, destructive person, but now it’s becoming completely impulsive and confused.SCOTT HARRIS: Dr. Gartner, just recently we’ve seen Donald Trump lash out at an entire community, the Somalians living in Minnesota, basically calling them every name in the book. He’s also called for the execution of Democratic legislators who informed military service people that they should not follow or obey illegal orders. And then just the other day after the apparent homicide involving Rob Reiner, the movie director and his wife, Donald Trump said in one of his social media posts that Rob Reiner died because he was critical of Trump. I wondered if you would just talk about some of the other examples and what your major concern is about someone like Donald Trump, who uniquely in the world has the nuclear codes to the world’s deadliest arsenal of nuclear weapons.JOHN GARTNER: We really he reason to be utterly terrified. This really is kind of the worst case scenario. We he a mad king, but a mad king with dementia and a mad king with dementia, the absolute power to destroy the world and kind of the temperament to do it. We’re seeing now because of the dementia and because he has so much power, the combination of the two is he’s acting out in all of these incredibly destructive ways.We always knew he was a racist, but demonizing a whole ethnic group in extended terms, expressing itself in more primitive ways and in ways where he’s more inclined to just impulsively go into action. He’s the American Hitler by personality, right? So we understand why he would want to jail his critics because that’s what fascists do, and he has the fascist personality disorder. But also now because he’s become so cognitively declined, it’s expressing itself in these ways that are so grotesque and so inappropriate and so bizarre. And this is only going to get worse. I always say to people, look at Donald Trump today because that’s the best Donald Trump you’re ever going to see because we’re talking about a deteriorating illness. But the problem is as he’s deteriorating, no one is stopping him.SCOTT HARRIS: Dr. Gartner, in talking about all of Trump’s dysfunction, the question arises who’s in charge of our government? A lot of people are concerned that somebody like Stephen Miller, who’s very close to the president and is I think the primary responsible person in the White House for a lot of both the domestic and foreign policy decisions. I don’t expect that you or I could know who really is in charge, but what’s the danger in that?JOHN GARTNER: Well, they used to say in the Middle Ages, a bad king is better than no king. But no king is better than a child king because the child king, you just he all this internecine warfare and court politics and wars, and it’s just total chaos. It is very dangerous to he a leader who’s slipping and then hing other people around them sort of assuming covert power. Stephen Miller, I think, is the greatest threat. I think he’s insane. I think he is truly a Nazi. I think he’s channeling Goebbels in a way that’s psychotic. And he wants to terrorize the immigrants in the cities. Really, this is like Kristallnacht. There’s a reign of terror going on in this country, right? ICE is essentially, what is it, these masked thugs, breaking windows, wrestling people to the ground. This is a true reign of terror. This is Stephen Miller. And then there’s Russell Vought who just wants to completely destroy the federal government and he’s doing that piece by piece. So yeah, Trump has sort of delegated to these guys. I can’t imagine a more destructive duo right now.Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with John Gartner (17:02) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. For periodic updates on the Trump authoritarian playbook, subscribe here to our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack newsletter to get updates to our “Hey AmeriKKKa, It’s Not Normal” compilation.
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