Latest news with #MontrealCognitiveAssessment
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Trump Shows Signs of ‘Cognitive Decline' Says Speech Expert
Donald Trump's rambling speeches and stream-of-consciousness press briefings could be symptoms of his 'cognitive decline,' according to one of America's top rhetoric experts. The warning comes as Trump and his aides are seeking a congressional probe into Joe Biden's mental state during his one-term presidency. The extent to which Biden, now 82, hid his capability has led to major questions over whether he was fit to lead the country. Now, Trump, who was the oldest president to be inaugurated at the age of 78 and seven months in January, is facing scrutiny over his position as the most powerful man on the planet. His father, Fred, was reportedly diagnosed with dementia in the early 1990s and died of pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease at age 93 in 1999. Dr. Jennifer R. Mercieca, professor of Communication and Journalism at Texas A&M University, told the Daily Beast that the president's communication patterns could be a cause for concern. 'His lack of focus makes it seem as though he's experiencing cognitive decline, that his brain is not well-disciplined, and he's unable to maintain a thought and carry it through to a logical conclusion,' she said. Dr. Mercieca, the author of Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, is an expert on speeches and rhetorical strategy. She said that while she's not a speech pathologist or an expert on ageing, she understands how an audience might easily become confused by the way he talks. 'Trump sees himself as someone who is unscripted and not teleprompter,' she added. 'He likes to brand himself as a 'truthteller' who can and will say anything that comes to mind. 'Unfortunately, that makes his speeches difficult to follow as he digresses from thought to thought—seemingly connecting ideas at random.' The president's April 11 annual physical, carried out by his physician Sean Barbabella, found him to be in 'excellent health.' 'President Trump's days include participation in multiple meetings, public appearances, press availability, and frequent victories in golf events,' Barbabella said in his report. 'President Trump exhibits excellent cognitive and physical health and is fully fit to execute the duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State.' The physician also gave Trump a perfect score for his mental health, claiming: 'Cognitive function, assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), was normal with a score of 30 out of 30.' But in recent public appearances, Trump has shocked audiences with sudden changes of subject and repeated topics and claims. He continually brings up Biden's alleged cognitive decline while in the Oval Office, blames the previous administration for the nation's ills, and goes back to his favorite issues like the price of eggs, the dangers represented by undocumented immigrants, and DEI time and time again. In a speech on Saturday at the prestigious West Point military academy, the president took credit for boosting recruitment and thanked parents for attending, which would be in line with most expectations. But during the nearly hour-long speech, Trump also strayed to say the forces should not 'host drag shows', there would be no teaching of critical race theory, he insisted that men playing women's sports would no longer be permitted, and claimed he was investigated 'more than the great, late Alphonse Capone.' Going off on a tangent, he continued: 'Alphonse Capone was a monster, he was a very hardened criminal. I went through more investigations than Alphonse Capone, and now I'm talking to you as president, can you believe this?' (This isn't true—Trump was indicted four times, and Capone was indicted six times). Even more bizarrely, the president told graduates not to marry 'trophy wives.' In December, Trump said that while his ramblings may appear incoherent, they were 'genius.' 'I do the weave,' he explained. 'You know what the weave is? I'll talk about, like, nine different things that they all come back brilliantly together. And it's like friends of mine that are like English professors, they say: 'It's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen.'' 'But the fake news, you know what they say, 'He rambled.' It's not rambling. What you do is you get off a subject to mention another little titbit, then you get back on to the subject, and you go through this and you do it for two hours, and you don't even mispronounce one word.' His explanation came after his 'weave' involved linking the cannibal serial killer Hannibal Lecter with his immigration policies. At one rally, reported The Guardian, he described the 'late, great Hannibal Lecter' as 'a wonderful man.' While the price of eggs coming down has been a recent topic, before his inauguration, he claimed that the price of wind power had driven up inflation so that people weren't buying bacon. 'You make a speech, and my speeches last a long time because of the weave, you know, I mean, I weave stories into it,' Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan. 'If you don't, if you just read a teleprompter, nobody's going to be very excited. You've got to weave it out. So you, but you always have to, as you say, you always have to get right back to work. Otherwise, it's no good. But the weave is very, very important. Very few weavers around. But it's a big strain on your, you know, it's a big, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work.' Dr. Mercieca said the idea of the 'weave' was an attempt to deflect criticism. 'In order to counter the perception that these digressions are actually a strategy, Trump has branded his speaking style 'the weave' and claims that experts in rhetoric believe it's a good way to communicate,' she told the Beast. 'It's not a good or effective way to communicate. It shows a lack of discipline and control,' added the award-winning historian of American political rhetoric and rhetorical analyst. A White House spokesperson claimed the university professor suffered from 'Trump derangement syndrome' and insisted: 'President Trump is the most accessible and transparent president in history–constantly showing off his impeccable mental and physical health." However, the American public doesn't appear to be convinced by Trump's assurances about his robust health. A YouGov/Economist poll, conducted last week, found that 45 percent felt Trump had been 'not at all' or 'not very' transparent about his health. The poll also found that 31 percent believed Trump's age and health severely affected his ability as president.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Trump Talks 'Trophy Wives' But Biden's Autopen Is the New 'Her Emails'
You won't believe this—or actually, perhaps you will—but now the Republicans are investigating the autopen. The House Oversight Committee, led by that sea-green incorruptible James Comer, is preparing to subpoena some top Biden administration officials to get to the bottom of this 'scandal,' which Donald Trump has been braying about for months. Comer, you'll recall, had spent $20 million taxpayer dollars investigating the 'Biden Crime Family' by last summer and turned up nothing, which naturally never stopped him from going on Fox News to announce that a new devastating revelation was just around the corner. Remember the name Devon Archer? He was a Hunter Biden business associate who testified before the committee behind closed doors. He told the committee he knew of no bribery allegations involving Joe or Hunter Biden and would be shocked if such stories were true. Comer immediately went on Hannity to say: 'Every day this bribery scandal becomes more credible.' And by the way—the Biden Crime Family investigation is ongoing! The new investigation into Joe Biden's autopen usage is not being driven by whether it's constitutional for a president to employ an autopen to sign legally binding documents. Nearly every constitutional scholar in the country agrees that it is. Rather, the point is to prove … well … it's kind of hard to say. Joe Biden's mental acuity will hardly be an issue at the top of voters' minds come 2028. However, someone else's mental acuity might be. We got a little taste of Trump's mental state Saturday when he told the graduating class at West Point to avoid 'trophy wives.' It was no more bizarre than most Trump speeches, I suppose, but the solemnity of the setting made it seem more so, along with the fact that Trump broke custom and did not shake the hand of every graduate. (Imagine how Fox would have covered it if Kamala Harris were president and had done that.) MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell has been more direct than most lately in speculating about Trump's mental state. He charged recently that Trump's infamous answer of 'I don't know' when asked on Meet the Press whether he needed to uphold the Constitution 'could be a sign of mental illness, or it could be a sign of early-stage dementia in a 78-year-old man.' Pugilistic Trump spokesman Stephen Cheung fired back by accusing O'Donnell of having 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' and boasting that Trump 'aced his cognitive test.' He may be referring to something more recent, but the most famous test Trump took was way back in 2018, when he sat for the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, on which he boasted he got a perfect score. I found a sample of the test online. It asks the person to draw a 3-D cube. That might be tricky for some—except that a drawing of a 3-D cube is right there; all the test-taker has to do is copy it. It asks the person to draw a clock with the time showing 10 minutes after 11. It shows drawings of a lion, a rhinoceros, and a camel and asks the person to name them. It asks the person to count backwards from 100 by sevens down to 65. These are not the LSATs, in other words. I won't speculate about Trump's mental health. There's no need to speculate. He shows us every day that he's not a very smart man, and he brags about it. He genuinely thinks tariffs will produce enough revenue to eliminate the income tax. That's about as dumb a thing as I've ever heard any elected official say. There's a trope working its way across Facebook that I've seen on the pages of some old high-school friends who are MAGA. It says something like: If Donald Trump is so dumb, how did he get elected president twice, outwit the deep state, and so on and so on. The answer is simple. He lies all the time, and he had and has thousands of important people lying and covering for him. Fox News hosts. The Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro types. Aileen Cannon, notably. Nearly every Republican office holder, either by commission or omission. It's the simplest lesson for America of the Trump years: Lying works. And I don't mean lying in private. You lie to your spouse or child or sibling or friend, you're probably going to get caught; and because you have a conscience, you will fess up, and you will be humiliated and will have to perform penance to win back the person's trust. But public lying? That works reliably in this country—and with this political press—as long as you stick to it, never give an inch, and then turn around and call your accusers liars. That helps, too. It's called DARVO—Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender—and it's Trump's one neat trick for political survival. Comer, in his odd way, is proof of this. He's bumbled his way through these investigations telling lie after lie and blooper after blooper. But by cracky, he's still the chairman of the powerful House Oversight Committee. He still directs the spending of taxpayer money on these mad chases, he still has subpoena power, and we all still have to take him seriously, even though he flouts his unseriousness on the national stage every single day. Comer hasn't bagged any quarry. But that isn't really the point. The points are three: first, to do whatever Donald Trump wants him to do; second, to keep the focus on Biden's mental condition so as to deflect attention away from similar questions about Trump; and third and mainly, to keep the base in a state of agitation about the latest 'Democrat' conspiracy. The Biden autopen is the new 'but her emails.' And when it runs its course, they'll find a new new pseudo-scandal to pursue. I suppose we can take comfort in the fact that they keep getting dumber.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
How tall is Donald Trump? Who is the tallest president in U.S. history?
President Donald Trump has been deemed to be "fully fit" to perform his presidential duties according to a memo released by the White House physician, adding that he remains in "excellent health." The 78-year old president weighed in at 224 pounds, which is 20 pounds lighter than his last presidential physical reported in 2020, and measuring 75 inches in height. The report indicated his resting heart rate at 62 beats per minute, blood pressure at 128/74 mmHg and a score of 30 out of 30 on a Montreal Cognitive Assessment exam used to detect mild cognitive dysfunction. 'Overall, I felt I was in very good shape," the president told reporters on Air Force One Friday as he headed to Florida. Adding "I got every answer right,' on his cognitive test. Trump's height has often been questioned, including last year during a meeting with Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales. In a picture of the two together at the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, the 6'3 Prince seems to tower over the president, who is also reported to be 6'3. Trump stands at 6'3 and his wife, First Lady Melania Trump stands at 5'11. His eldest of five children, son Donald Jr. stands at 6'1, daughter Ivanka stands at 5'11, Eric stands at a tall 6'5, daughter Tiffany stands at 5'8 and the youngest son, Barron Trump, towers over the entire family at 6'7. The average height for males in the U.S. is 5 feet 9 inches or 175.26 cm and the average for women is if 5' 4' or 162.56 cm according to the World Population Review. This makes the U.S. is the 40th tallest nation in the world, with the Netherlands topping the chart at 184 cm as the average height for males. The tallest president in U.S. history is Abraham Lincoln, recorded at 6' 4', followed by Lyndon B. Johnson at 6' 3.5'. Trump stands as the third tallest president in history at 6' 3', followed by Thomas Jefferson and Bill Clinton, both at 6' 2.5'. Other modern day presidents in the top ten tallest were George H. W. Bush measuring at 6' 2' and Barack Obama at 6' 1.5' The shortest president recorded in history was James Madison at 5'4'. This article originally appeared on How tall is Donald Trump? Who is the tallest president in U.S. history
The Intercept
09-05-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
'I Don't Know.' Trump's Preferred Response to All Kinds of Questions
President Donald Trump keeps saying he doesn't know what his own administration is up to. Three times in the last week, Trump responded to questions about his signature policies by expressing ignorance. Is he truly clueless? Is he fully aware of the answer but using ignorance as a cover? Whatever the case, the White House doesn't want to talk about it. 'I don't know. I really don't.' The first instance came in comments to NBC News' Kristen Welker on May 4. Though Trump has twice placed his hand on a bible and sworn, to the best of his ability, to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,' he seemed to have forgotten those oaths on 'Meet the Press.' Asked whether everyone in the United States is entitled to due process — the constitutional rights enshrined in both the Fifth and the Fourteenth amendments — Trump was foggy. 'I don't know. I'm not, I'm not a lawyer,' he said. 'I don't know.' When reports surfaced May 7 that Trump planned to deport hundreds of immigrants to Libya, a reporter put the question to him: 'Is your administration sending migrants to Libya?' 'I don't know,' Trump replied. 'You'll have to ask the Department of Homeland Security.' While fielding questions that same day in the Oval Office, Trump was asked whether he agreed with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's comments about potential tariff exemptions for products that families rely on, such as baby car seats. Trump, again, appeared vexed. 'I don't know, I'll think about it,' the president said. 'I don't know. I really don't.' 'I don't know. I'm not, I'm not a lawyer.' Trump repeatedly cast his predecessor, President Joe Biden, as senile and inept. 'He can't do an interview. He's incompetent,' Trump said of Biden while he was running for president in 2020. 'To be president, you have to be sharp and tough and so many other things.' During last year's presidential campaign Trump derided Biden's 'hazy memory' and dusted off his 'Sleepy Joe' dig from the prior election cycle. 'I'm not sure that Biden knows what the hell's going on,' Trump said last year. 'I don't think he knows he's alive, actually.' In 2020, Trump bragged about passing a mental competence test. 'I aced it,' he said of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test, noting it was 'very hard,' specifically the last five questions. The test is not, however, supposed to be hard if you aren't suffering from some form of dementia. During a press gaggle last month, Trump boasted about the results of a more recent test. 'I wanted to be a little different than Biden. I took a cognitive test and I don't know what to tell you other than I got every answer right,' he boasted. Asked if it was the same one he had taken in 2020, Trump replied: 'I think it's a pretty well-known test. Whatever it is, I got every one.' A little more than a minute later, Trump was asked about the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador for alleged ties to the MS-13 gang. 'How do you plan to respond to the Supreme Court ruling and the other courts about the gentleman who was in Maryland who was put in the El Salvador prison?' asked a reporter. 'Is that the one that was not Tren de Aragua but he was MS-13?' Trump said. 'Just the one that they've said needs to come back,' the reporter responded. 'Was he MS-13? 'Cause I only know about that,' Trump offered. 'I mean, I don't know which one.'
Daily Record
02-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Record
Test your brain health with 30-point cognitive exercise taken by Donald Trump
A neurologist has shared a simple test to measure cognitive function A neurologist has revealed a simple cognitive test that can be undertaken from the comfort of your own home. The assessment is said to have been used by US presidents, including Donald Trump. The purpose of these tests is to gauge various cognitive abilities – memory retention, problem-solving skills, attentiveness, and focus levels – key measures of our cerebral vitality. A below-par score may indicate a decline in mental sharpness, potentially signalling early stages of dementia. On TikTok, neurologist Doctor Baibing Chen who is also known as Dr Bing, shared insights into how this type of assessment works. He said "Here is what a cognitive test would look like for a president. "Let's see how you would do. The max score is 30 points and you can pause the video at any time to answer these questions." His questions were based on what is known as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which President Trump reportedly took and passed in April this year. Clock drawing (3 points) - Draw a clock that shows five past nine. You score one point for a round clock, one point for the correct placement of numbers, and one point for the correct hands. Word colours (2 points) - Dr Bing displayed three words 'red', 'black' and 'blue'. Each word was displayed in a different colour to what was written. You need to say the colour of the font, rather than the word that is written. You get two points if completed correctly (no partial points). Animals (3 points) - He showed a picture of three animals - a penguin, turtle, and whale and asked you to name them. You get one point for each correct animal. Repeat words (5 points) - Dr Bing asked you to listen and repeat five words back to him. You get one point for each correct word. You also need to remember these for later in the test. Repeat numbers (2 points) - He listed five numbers for you to repeat back. You get two points if you correctly repeat all the numbers. Repeat numbers in reverse (2 points) - He then asked you to repeat some numbers but in reverse order to how he said them. This is also worth two points. Multiples (2 points) - You must tap your hand when he names a number that is a multiple of four. You get one point for each correct tap and one point for correctly withholding taps on non-multiples. Repeat the sentence (1 point) - He asked you to repeat a short sentence back to him. You get one point for getting it completely correct. Name as many fruits as you can (1 point) - You need to name as many fruits as you can in 10 seconds. You get one point for naming five or more. Point out the similarities (1 point) - He asked you to point out the similarity between a watch and a calendar. Name the words from earlier (5 points) - Dr Bing asked you to recall the five words from question five earlier. You get one point for each correct word. Where you are now (3 points) - He asked you to tell him what season it currently is, what month it is and what city you are in. You get one point for each correct answer. Dr Bing said: "The test that you just did tests similar brain regions and functions as one of the cognitive tests that some presidents reportedly take, let me know how you did." Last month, Trump, who is 78 years old, boasted that he "got every answer right" on his cognitive assessments. As the Independent reported, Trump took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, achieving a perfect score of 30 out of 30. The report also noted that his evaluations for depression and anxiety were within normal limits.
