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[Politics](https://theweek.com/uk/politics) [Opinion](https://theweek.com/uk/opinion) # It's time to start talking about Trump's mental health There's just no denying it: Trump seems addled, befuddled, and unwell  By [Ryan Cooper](https://theweek.com/uk/author/ryan-cooper) last updated 16 May 2017  (Image credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque) Share - Copy link - [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftheweek.com%2Farticles%2F699175%2Ftime-start-talking-about-trumps-mental-health) - [X](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=It%27s+time+to+start+talking+about+Trump%27s+mental+health&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheweek.com%2Farticles%2F699175%2Ftime-start-talking-about-trumps-mental-health) - [Linkedin](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheweek.com%2Farticles%2F699175%2Ftime-start-talking-about-trumps-mental-health&title=It%27s+time+to+start+talking+about+Trump%27s+mental+health&source=theweek.com) - [Whatsapp](whatsapp://send?text=It%27s+time+to+start+talking+about+Trump%27s+mental+health+https%3A%2F%2Ftheweek.com%2Farticles%2F699175%2Ftime-start-talking-about-trumps-mental-health?fwa) - [Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheweek.com%2Farticles%2F699175%2Ftime-start-talking-about-trumps-mental-health&media=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net%2FHsLdscx65x9u2UxrE3wvG8.jpg) Share this article Join the conversation [Follow us](https://google.com/preferences/source?q=theweek.com) Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com *** By signing up, you agree to our [Terms of services](https://futureplc.com/terms-conditions/) and acknowledge that you have read our [Privacy Notice](https://futureplc.com/privacy-policy). You also agree to receive marketing emails from us that may include promotions from our trusted partners and sponsors, which you can unsubscribe from at any time. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful *** An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter For many Americans, one of the defining features of the Trump presidency is checking the news after a couple hours offline and finding out that you've missed some jaw-dropping story of insane, reckless, and/or idiotic behavior from our nation's 45th president. On Monday, it was the *Washington Post* scoop that President Trump had [shared highly classified intelligence](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?utm_term=.5004248623b1) about ISIS with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister — potentially compromising delicate intelligence-sharing arrangements, and raising the possibility that the Russians would be able to reverse-engineer the source. [National Security](https://theweek.com/uk/tag/national-security) Adviser H.R. McMaster gave a carefully-worded non-denial trying to dispute the story, but Trump himself [stepped all over that on Twitter Tuesday morning](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/864436162567471104), boorishly admitting he had done it and trying to justify himself. See more See more It's time to start talking about President Trump's mental health. Article continues below You may like - [ The ‘mad king’: has Trump finally lost it?](https://theweek.com/politics/the-mad-king-has-trump-finally-lost-it) - [ A running list of everything Donald Trump’s administration, including the president, has said about his health](https://theweek.com/politics/trump-administration-president-health-quotes) - [ Trump’s jumbled doctrine of global force emerges](https://theweek.com/politics/trump-military-doctrine-empire-iran-venezuela) ## Savour the important news. Get unlimited access online, in app, or in print. [Start your free trial](https://theweek.com/subscription/brandsite?channel=Brandsite&utm_source=theweek.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=brandsite&utm_content=uk-article-page)  ## Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters From our daily WeekDay news briefing to an award-winning Food & Drink email, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. From our daily WeekDay news briefing to an award-winning Food & Drink email, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. [Sign up](https://theweek.com/uk-newsletters) Latest Videos From The Week UK Trump is correct that his terrifyingly expansive powers as president allow him to reveal whatever classified material he wants. But it's still baffling why he would do such a thing. Intelligence sharing is generally supposed to be done after careful discussion, and between intelligence agencies, not civilian leaders. You have to be very careful with language, so as to not reveal more than intended — and especially not to the Russians, given that American forces are at odds with them in Syria and several other global hotspots. If you're at all familiar with the way Trump tends to ramble and boast, a simple explanation presents itself: He just got carried away and started running his mouth. That is unquestionably the most probable explanation. Of course, that in and of itself does not mean that America's president is mentally unwell. There is, however, so much more. As [Kevin Drum points out](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/05/public-service-announcement), Trump has been showing many other [signs of mental decline](http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/tc/dementia-symptoms) over the past year, especially since he took office. He has [bursts of temper](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-trumps-anger-and-impatience-prompted-him-to-fire-the-fbi-director/2017/05/10/d9642334-359c-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html?utm_term=.b6a5c2f5c4d1), [forgets people's names](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-paul-ryan-wisconsin-speech-calls-him-ron-a7691326.html), [mixes up the names of countries he's bombing](http://fusion.kinja.com/donald-trump-forgot-which-country-he-just-bombed-1794253065), and forgets [to finish simple tasks](http://www.nbcnews.com/video/trump-forgets-to-sign-executive-order-911564355790). Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com By signing up, you agree to our [Terms of services](https://futureplc.com/terms-conditions/) and acknowledge that you have read our [Privacy Notice](https://futureplc.com/privacy-policy). You also agree to receive marketing emails from us that may include promotions from our trusted partners and sponsors, which you can unsubscribe from at any time. Perhaps most tellingly, Trump's speech patterns are vastly different now than they were years ago. All the above might be excused if they were single instances — healthy people occasionally mix up names or get disoriented, too. However, Trump *did not used to be like this*. Compare a few minutes at random from this 1990 interview to this [*AP* interview from last month](https://www.apnews.com/c810d7de280a47e88848b0ac74690c83): The themes are generally similar — complaints about media unfairness, boasts about his own competence and popularity, and so on. But today, Trump is manifestly *less there*. He uses simpler words and repeats himself constantly (using the word "great" 31 times in the *AP* interview), and he flits from subject to subject. While before he could stick to a line of argument, and string together reasonably clear sentences, now he's all over the place. A [study on Alzheimer's disease](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25633673) once compared the word use at unscripted press conferences of President Reagan, who was so diagnosed, to President George H.W. Bush, who was not. It found precisely this sort of decline in vocabulary and increase in generic words and hesitation. What to read next - [ Trump’s power grab: the start of a new world order?](https://theweek.com/politics/trumps-power-grab-the-start-of-a-new-world-order) - [ Trump’s Greenland threats overshadow Ukraine talks](https://theweek.com/world-news/trump-greenland-threats-ukraine) - [ Trump’s Greenland ambitions push NATO to the edge](https://theweek.com/politics/trump-greenland-nato-crisis) Now, I am not a doctor. This is not an actual diagnosis, of course. And Trump is not totally incoherent. He can still have a conversation. But imagine your own father or grandfather acting this way. You would probably urge your loved one to make an appointment to get a brain scan. Now imagine this loved one could drop nuclear weapons anywhere on Earth at a few minutes' notice. Unfortunately for the American people and the world as a whole, so long as Trump can be persuaded to scrawl something approximating a signature at the bottom of a bill to steal health care from the poor, Republican lawmakers will not admit what is abundantly clear: Something is going on with President Trump. He is not well.  [Ryan Cooper](https://theweek.com/uk/author/ryan-cooper) Social Links Navigation Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at *TheWeek.com*. His work has appeared in the *Washington Monthly*, *The New Republic*, and the *Washington Post*. Read more [ Politics The ‘mad king’: has Trump finally lost it?](https://theweek.com/politics/the-mad-king-has-trump-finally-lost-it "The ‘mad king’: has Trump finally lost it?") 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For many Americans, one of the defining features of the Trump presidency is checking the news after a couple hours offline and finding out that you've missed some jaw-dropping story of insane, reckless, and/or idiotic behavior from our nation's 45th president. On Monday, it was the *Washington Post* scoop that President Trump had [shared highly classified intelligence](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?utm_term=.5004248623b1) about ISIS with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister — potentially compromising delicate intelligence-sharing arrangements, and raising the possibility that the Russians would be able to reverse-engineer the source. [National Security](https://theweek.com/uk/tag/national-security) Adviser H.R. McMaster gave a carefully-worded non-denial trying to dispute the story, but Trump himself [stepped all over that on Twitter Tuesday morning](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/864436162567471104), boorishly admitting he had done it and trying to justify himself. See more See more It's time to start talking about President Trump's mental health. Article continues below ## Savour the important news. Get unlimited access online, in app, or in print. [Start your free trial](https://theweek.com/subscription/brandsite?channel=Brandsite&utm_source=theweek.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=brandsite&utm_content=uk-article-page) ## Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters From our daily WeekDay news briefing to an award-winning Food & Drink email, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. From our daily WeekDay news briefing to an award-winning Food & Drink email, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. Latest Videos From The Week UK Trump is correct that his terrifyingly expansive powers as president allow him to reveal whatever classified material he wants. But it's still baffling why he would do such a thing. Intelligence sharing is generally supposed to be done after careful discussion, and between intelligence agencies, not civilian leaders. You have to be very careful with language, so as to not reveal more than intended — and especially not to the Russians, given that American forces are at odds with them in Syria and several other global hotspots. If you're at all familiar with the way Trump tends to ramble and boast, a simple explanation presents itself: He just got carried away and started running his mouth. That is unquestionably the most probable explanation. Of course, that in and of itself does not mean that America's president is mentally unwell. There is, however, so much more. As [Kevin Drum points out](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/05/public-service-announcement), Trump has been showing many other [signs of mental decline](http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/tc/dementia-symptoms) over the past year, especially since he took office. He has [bursts of temper](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-trumps-anger-and-impatience-prompted-him-to-fire-the-fbi-director/2017/05/10/d9642334-359c-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html?utm_term=.b6a5c2f5c4d1), [forgets people's names](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-paul-ryan-wisconsin-speech-calls-him-ron-a7691326.html), [mixes up the names of countries he's bombing](http://fusion.kinja.com/donald-trump-forgot-which-country-he-just-bombed-1794253065), and forgets [to finish simple tasks](http://www.nbcnews.com/video/trump-forgets-to-sign-executive-order-911564355790). A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com Perhaps most tellingly, Trump's speech patterns are vastly different now than they were years ago. All the above might be excused if they were single instances — healthy people occasionally mix up names or get disoriented, too. However, Trump *did not used to be like this*. Compare a few minutes at random from this 1990 interview to this [*AP* interview from last month](https://www.apnews.com/c810d7de280a47e88848b0ac74690c83): The themes are generally similar — complaints about media unfairness, boasts about his own competence and popularity, and so on. But today, Trump is manifestly *less there*. He uses simpler words and repeats himself constantly (using the word "great" 31 times in the *AP* interview), and he flits from subject to subject. While before he could stick to a line of argument, and string together reasonably clear sentences, now he's all over the place. A [study on Alzheimer's disease](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25633673) once compared the word use at unscripted press conferences of President Reagan, who was so diagnosed, to President George H.W. Bush, who was not. It found precisely this sort of decline in vocabulary and increase in generic words and hesitation. Now, I am not a doctor. This is not an actual diagnosis, of course. And Trump is not totally incoherent. He can still have a conversation. But imagine your own father or grandfather acting this way. You would probably urge your loved one to make an appointment to get a brain scan. Now imagine this loved one could drop nuclear weapons anywhere on Earth at a few minutes' notice. Unfortunately for the American people and the world as a whole, so long as Trump can be persuaded to scrawl something approximating a signature at the bottom of a bill to steal health care from the poor, Republican lawmakers will not admit what is abundantly clear: Something is going on with President Trump. He is not well.