\n<\/p>\n
In an address from the White House in December, Donald Trump claimed that, over the past 11 months, his administration had brought \u201cmore positive change\u201d than any government in US history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has never been anything like it,\u201d Trump added.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true that his second term has been unusual, including in some ways which the president might not appreciate. That\u2019s because Trump, 79, has shown erratic and at times confused behavior throughout 2025, leading to questions about his mental and physical performance.<\/p>\n
Trump has appeared to fall asleep during some meetings; amid others, he has drifted off-topic, launching into bizarre segues on interior decor or about whales and birds. His public appearances have lacked focus, and he has used speeches to ramble about how Barack Obama walks down stairs, or to invent stories about the Unabomber.<\/p>\n
The unpredictable behavior has forced the White House to repeatedly defend Trump\u2019s mental acuity, often in hyperbolic terms. Trump himself has bragged that he \u201caced\u201d an assessment which tests for early signs of dementia, but over the course of his 11 months in office, examples of unusual behavior have piled up.<\/p>\n
There was the case in mid-July, when Trump told a detailed story about how his uncle, the late professor John Trump, had taught Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).<\/p>\n
Trump recalled: \u201cI said: \u2018What kind of a student was he, Uncle John? Dr John Trump.\u2019 I said: \u2018What kind of a student?\u2019 And then he said: \u2018Seriously, good.\u2019 He said: \u2018He\u2019d correct \u2013 he\u2019d go around correcting everybody.\u2019 But it didn\u2019t work out too well for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The problem is: that cannot possibly be true. First, Trump\u2019s uncle died in 1985, and Kaczynski was only publicly identified as the Unabomber in 1996. Second, Kaczynski did not study at MIT.<\/p>\n
Later that month, during a meeting with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, Trump abruptly switched from discussing immigration to ranting about \u201cwindmills\u201d. Speaking, non-stop and unprompted, for two minutes, Trump claimed without evidence that they drive whales \u201cloco\u201d and that wind energy \u201ckills the birds\u201d (the proportion of birds killed by turbines is tiny compared with the number killed by domestic cats and from them flying into power lines).<\/p>\n
Another incident that raised questions about Trump\u2019s state of mind came in September. Trump summoned the country\u2019s top military commanders to a meeting in Virginia, and treated them to a speech touting his alleged successes before saying this:<\/p>\n
America is respected again as a country. We were not respected with Biden. They looked at him falling down stairs every day. Every day, the guy\u2019s falling down stairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump continued:<\/p>\n
I said: \u2018It\u2019s not our president. We can\u2019t have it.\u2019 I\u2019m very careful, you know, when I walk downstairs for \u2013 like I\u2019m on stairs, like these stairs, I\u2019m very \u2013 I walk very slowly. Nobody has to set a record, just try not to fall because it doesn\u2019t work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen and it became a part of their legacy.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t want that. Need to walk nice and easy. You not have \u2013 you don\u2019t have to set any record. Be cool, be cool when you walk down, but don\u2019t, don\u2019t bop down the stairs. That\u2019s the one thing with Obama, I had zero respect for him as a president, but he would bop down those stairs, I\u2019ve never seen \u2013 da da da da da da, bop, bop, bop, he\u2019d go down the stairs, wouldn\u2019t hold on. I said, it\u2019s great, I don\u2019t want to do it. I guess I could do it, but eventually bad things are going to happen and it only takes once, but he did a lousy job as president.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House has repeatedly batted away questions about Trump\u2019s mental acuity, a spokesperson told the Guardian earlier this year that his \u201cmental sharpness is second to none\u201d, while Ronny Jackson, a Republican congressman who previously served as Trump\u2019s doctor, claimed he was the \u201chealthiest president this nation has ever seen\u201d.<\/p>\n
Still, the speculation over Trump\u2019s health is unlikely to go away, with the Daily Beast reporting that Democrats are planning to make his mental acuity and fitness a key issue ahead of next year\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n
They will have a fair amount of ammunition. In November, Trump, the oldest person to be inaugurated as president, said he had undergone an MRI, but couldn\u2019t remember which body part received the scan. That month he also appeared to fall asleep during a meeting in the Oval Office \u2013 the same thing happened during a cabinet meeting in early December, and again two weeks later, at a press conference announcing cannabis reforms.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Trump mixed up Albania with Armenia when discussing a peace deal involving the latter; discussing autism in a speech at the White House, he mused about \u201ccertain elements of genius that can be given to a baby\u201d. Announcing that 13 grants would be awarded to investigate autism, Trump added: \u201cNothing bad can happen, it can only good happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among these moments of confusion have been incidents of Trump lashing out without inhibition. In December alone, he declared Somali immigrants to be \u201cgarbage\u201d and, in a move that shocked even some Republicans, essentially blamed Rob Reiner for his own death.<\/p>\n
Trump finds time to say and do these things despite a reduced schedule. On average, Trump\u2019s scheduled events only start at about noon, and usually end at 5pm, a shorter workday compared to his first term, the New York Times found, while the number of his official appearances has decreased by 39%.<\/p>\n
A White House official told the Guardian: \u201cNot all of the president\u2019s meetings are listed on the daily guidance that is distributed to the press.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liz Huston, the White House assistant press secretary, said in an emailed statement: \u201cThe Guardian is a left-wing mouthpiece that should be deeply embarrassed to publish this garbage. As the President\u2019s physician, Dr Sean Barbabella, has made clear time and again \u2013 and as the American people see with their own eyes every single day \u2013 President Trump remains in excellent overall health.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s relentless work ethic, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility stand in sharp contrast to what we saw during the past four years when the failing legacy media intentionally covered up Joe Biden\u2019s serious mental and physical decline from the American people. Pushing these fake and desperate narratives now about President Trump is why Americans\u2019 trust in the media just fell to a new all-time low.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Pew Research Center survey in November found that 56% of US adults \u201csay they have a lot of or some trust in the information they get from national news organizations\u201d, which is 11 points lower than in March 2025, and 20 points lower than it was in 2016.<\/p>\n
That same month, a poll by Gallup found 36% of American adults approve of Trump\u2019s performance, the lowest rating of his second term. Earlier this year YouGov found that half of Americans think Trump is too old to be president.<\/p>\n
Throughout the year, the White House has ferociously defended Trump against accusations he is in decline. Yet the questions about Trump, who will turn 80 in June, are unlikely to go away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In an address from the White House in December, Donald Trump claimed that, over the past 11 months, his administration had brought \u201cmore positive change\u201d than any government in US history. \u201cThere has never been anything like it,\u201d Trump added. It\u2019s true that his second term has been unusual, including in some ways which the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[10043,964,21224,8877,81,2033],"class_list":{"0":"post-38948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-behavior","9":"tag-donald","10":"tag-mentally","11":"tag-presidents","12":"tag-trump","13":"tag-unusual"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}