‘Troubling’ new sign of Donald Trump’s cognitive decline spotted in latest interview

Former U.S. President Donald Trump visited the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania during the 19th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Around the same time, a political analyst raised concerns about Trump’s mental sharpness after a recent interview on Fox Business.

The analyst, Michael Popok, argued that Trump seemed to struggle with remembering important dates and details from his time in office. He pointed to a moment in the interview where Trump spoke about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a confusing and inaccurate way. Trump suggested that she tried to “live forever” and implied her death happened shortly after an election, which is not how events actually unfolded.

Popok said this kind of mistake is worrying. In his view, not being able to recall well-known facts, especially about major events, could suggest a decline in memory or thinking ability. He also noted that Trump had a very public reaction on the day Ginsburg died, which makes it more surprising that he would now get the details wrong.

He went further by saying that Trump often speaks without being corrected and doesn’t clarify his statements, which allows these kinds of inaccuracies to continue. According to Popok, this creates an environment where mistakes go unchecked and basic facts are sometimes misrepresented.

Earlier in the year, similar concerns were raised by Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a former White House physician. Reiner questioned Trump’s repeated claims about passing cognitive tests and undergoing brain scans. He suggested that the way Trump talks about these tests doesn’t match how they are normally used in medical practice. In his opinion, frequent testing and imaging might point to doctors keeping an eye on an existing issue rather than simply doing routine checkups.