Donald Trump is a wreck. He’s shown time and again that he’s barely holding it together, sweating profusely, slurring his words, and hardly able to perambulate from point A to point B. Here’s a new clip from Lincoln Project. They utilize a play on words, “time to ramp up” which is a reference to both the fact that the election is only 64 days away, and to Trump’s ludicrous shuffle down the exact same ramp that Joe Biden literally sprinted up. Where Trump stumbles, Biden runs and that’s both plain truth and a metaphor for their abilities as well.
64 days. Time to ramp up. pic.twitter.com/gC56ULXnS3
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) August 31, 2020
Now here we get to the proverbial $64,000 question: why is Trump in this condition? Adderall? Too many cheeseburgers? Or, has he suffered mini-strokes? Michael Schmidt of the New York Times has a new book, DONALD TRUMP V. THE UNITED STATES Inside the Struggle to Stop a President, coming out and he reports that Mike Pence was put on stand by when Trump went to Walter Reed Hospital last fall. This was the evening of the now famous person-woman-man-camera-tv cognitive test — of which Trump was incredibly proud that he passed, as you well recall.
One of the benefits of making videos that garner 5 million+ views is that you hear from a lot of people, including whistleblowers inside Trump administration.
I've received three communications saying that during his term Trump has suffered a "series" of "mini-strokes."
WATCH. pic.twitter.com/MHWQR1c2Yk
— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) August 1, 2020
This is stunning. If anything should be made into a campaign video, it should be this — and maybe Winslow will do just that. Meanwhile, it sounds like Schmidt’s book is going to be something, in a season of epic tell-all books. New York Times:
Whereas recent years have been packed with high-impact reported books about Trump’s erratic behavior and his administration’s backbiting — Bob Woodward’s “Fear,” Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig’s “A Very Stable Genius” and Jonathan Karl’s “Front Row at the Trump Show” come to mind — “Donald Trump v. the United States” is more closely tailored to the efforts to rein Trump in. As such, it may be unlikely to become a go-to for general conclusions about Trump’s character. But it adds significantly to the public understanding of the Mueller investigation and Trump’s war against it. […]
More interesting, however, is the constant flow of shocking anecdotes: Schmidt writes that Mitch McConnell fell asleep during a classified briefing on Russia, for example, and he details the F.B.I.’s shambolic reaction to evidence of the hacking in 2016, including an unresolved disagreement over how to handle the material. Describing Trump’s unexpected November 2019 visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, he reports the White House wanted Mike Pence “on standby to take over the powers of the presidency temporarily if Trump had to undergo a procedure that would have required him to be anesthetized.” (The vice president never had to take this step.)
Trump anesthetized is no less cogent than Trump at the height of his mental powers, but I guess that it’s protocol for the vice president to take over the reins, if the president* is unconscious in the medical sense. He certainly is that in every other sense, every day.
There is so much that goes on that we don’t know about, this is just another rock on the pile.
*rump is having a harder and harder time with his balance and speech. I don’t think he can hold it together through January 20th.
I’d be surprised if he can hold it together through November. He’s not doing well now.
They may be mini-strokes, but they’re clearly affecting his higher brain functions. (They don’t always – my grandmother had mini-strokes, and they affected her vision. She was more with-it at 90 than Himself is now.)
Also, it’s affecting his body: right arm and leg have visible problems. That’s not mini-stroke: that’s the real thing, even if it’s a mild version. (I’d like to see the radiologist’s report on a CT or MRI.)
I think the mini-stroke(s) theory is more than plausible, and in fact likely. Here’s something else I suspect is going on that would affect his gait. Peripheral neuropathy in his feet and perhaps up into his lower legs, a condition which I have that was severed enough I could no longer fully perform the duties of my job and wound up forced into involuntary early retirement (on disability) over. Being in my late 50s when it’s hard enough getting hired by a new company, adding in using a cane to get around drove a stake through the heart of getting a job, even a call center customer service type job virtually impossible. Not that I didn’t try. I did, and hard. For years.
Anyway, I’d developed diabetes which before I transferred (within my company) down to NC was quite well managed. It would take too long to explain other than to note that 80 hour weeks plus 24/7 on call (and the calls DID come and with frequency when I wasn’t down in one of the group homes) and between the stress and my diet going to hell (grabbing whatever I could when I could) led to various physical issues including the severe neuropathy which is the kind of thing that can be arrested to some degree but which can never be made better.
Now, if Trump hasn’t via his age, weight and eating habits developed Type II diabetes I’d be shocked. Probably before he ever ran for President. It’s also no secret that while it’s the most stressful job in the world (you’ve surely read all the stuff with before and after pictures) about how it ages anyone who holds the job prematurely. Trump doesn’t even work Reagan or Bush 43 hours as we all know. He does at best perhaps fifteen percent of the job and blows off everything else but the ceremonial shit where he gets to play the big shot. However his ego, and inability to take criticism of any kind or advice from anyone who doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear combined with having the Presidential spotlight (the brightest and most unblinking one there is) on him has to be stressful as hell for him. Add in that he’s put himself in a position where he can’t buy/bribe off people to make his problems go away and knowing the only thing that stands between him and both financial ruin and prison is the office he holds I’d say his stress level is as high or higher than any President who came before him.
And unless the docs (including one I found out was chair of the Neurology Dept. at Duke University School of Medicine) were bullshitting me sustained high stress was what led to the fairly quick development of my neuropathy. Diabetics are already prone to foot problems as blood flow is compromised. It’s one of the reasons every time I talk to a doc or get screened by a nurse at the VA (and even social workers) I get asked about FALLS. I wonder how many Trump has had? And whether he’s banged his head and suffered enough blows to have sustained a series of at least mild concussions?
Just more stuff to keep in mind.
I’d bet he has Type-2 also, and he’s not eating the way he should. (I have mild neuropathy, but it’s from chemo. My Type-2 is mild and manageable.)
I think he never saw anything in the job but the ceremonial stuff, the state dinners and schmoozing with Big Names. He was surprised to find there’s actual work involved, and he isn’t up to it and never was.
On top of the aforementioned conditions, I am pretty sure he has that type of dementia they talk about. The one where where his stance is odd and balance is bad. He may have that going on, too.
Frontotemporal Dementia / Pick’s disease.
He can’t stand up very well anymore. He leans on the podium and hangs on for dear life. Not sure if it’s back problem or what but he slouches too
I love their use of music: “Eye of the Tiger” for Biden and that “waaa waaa waaaaa” music for Trump. I looked up “Eye of the Tiger” composer Jim Peterik of Survivor to see if he was likely to object to this, and I found that he had issued Trump a cease-and-desist order for using the song, so I guess not.
In that second clip, he looks like his upper denture plate has come loose.
That’s precisely how it sounds, mixed in with some mild tranquilizer perhaps.