Addled (adj) /ˈæ.dəld/:
1) Confused. bewildered, dazed, distracted, silly, befuddled, disoriented, disturbed.
2) Rotten. spoiled, decomposed, decayed, corrupted, putrid.
I've written here before about the addled mind of Dumpy, from both angles. I am a speech-language pathologist, and with 35+ years' experience working with people with communication and cognitive disorders, I have a special knowledge to be able to speak to what we are facing with this person.
There have been several concerns over the last eight years about his speech, language, and cognition. I have subscribed to a conjecture that he has multi-infarct dementia: mini- and micro-strokes causing diffuse brain damage. I believe in the past we have been witness to some transient ischemic attacks (TIAs), which I have described in posts during SCROTUS 1.0.
I was asked by Big Sister Resister to revisit the topic in light of his addled visit to the Middle East a couple months ago and his continued bizarre language and behavior.
So, I dove into the fray. I watched several speeches in their entirety so you don't have to. His speech, language, and cognition continue to be concerning.
He may have his TIAs under control because there haven't been as many acute instances. Perhaps he is on some blood-thinners. There was evidence of a big bruise on his hand on more than one occasion this term; patients on blood thinners bruise more easily.
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| Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images; found in The Daily Beast |
But it's his dementia that seems to be running amok.
Speech
I've scoured a few recent speeches. There have been more instances of dysarthria and apraxia lately, especially dysarthria. In these first few examples from the event in Qatar a couple months ago, it's sometimes hard to discern whether it is unfamiliarity with a word or a disorder. In the more recent press conference at Alligator Auschwitz, his speech deterioration is more noticeable.
We'll look at both.
Butchering the name of a Middle Eastern place. Maybe Abu Graib? It's a name that should roll off the tongue of any American, let alone a president.
wut pic.twitter.com/ADHH8zoxf4
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 15, 2025
Someone show this to the addled mind.
There were a few instances of possible disordered motor speech during his rambling in Qatar a few weeks ago when he "led" a roundtable discussion.
Due to the difficulties in making my own compilation, I'm going to point you to timestamps.
I'm starting each clip at the point I refer to. Keep in mind, I'm just looking at motor speech here. Mispronunciations, slurred speech, etc. Truthfully, there weren't a lot of instances while he was in Qatar.... but keep reading!
Look at "exact opposite" at :33
"We treated you real good" at 18:16
And when he was signing a deal with Qatar:
(This one is a stretch; we all make such errors)
"tw-ade" for trade at 5:55
One concerning oral-motor thing I did notice, though, was the weird way he was holding his mouth at the end of the signing ceremony in Qatar. He purses his lips, moves his tongue and mouth around. Toward the end, he has a bit of a crooked smile (which is what BSR pointed me to to send me down this rabbit hole). He may have been having a small TIA at that moment.
OR it could be the Babyhands version of the Peanuts-style pen-in-hand concentration face.
You decide. Here is the spot:
Not much evidence in Qatar. At The Felon's recent press conference at Alligator Auschwitz, though, he had plenty of episodes of speech errors. When he was reading, he sounded pretty good. When he got off script, both his speech and his cognition showed impairments. He really slurred his speech in many spots, especially at the end when perhaps he was fatigued.
Here are a few. Forgive all the videos; I wish there was an easy way to download and chop up videos without skirting legality etc. Save your mental health and just watch the small bits I point you to.
"Transation" for "translation" here:
44:28. "You want to know the truth? So maybe that'll be the next job.."
45:50. "they destroyed all of the information" Destroyed is slurred.
48:30. "Well, I just heard that about the Senate and the bill just passed..." About the Senate and the bill just passed all the /s/ sounds are mushy
50:17. Various. Listen to "cognizant," "abandoning," "situations," "Kristi."
50:50. "farmers are going to be responsible." Very mushy.
51:00. "Tried once before."
At this point he's yammered for almost an hour. He may be getting tired. His speech is much more dysarthric: slurred and quite "mushy." The /s/ sound is especially imprecise.
51:49. "invested billions of dollars"
52:05. "this land."
54:10. "When we talk about popularity"
57:09. "substantially" and "carefully"
1:00:08. it's very convenient
1:02:38. "<unintelligible> getting rid of rules"
Language
Language disorders abound, and this is goes toward his overall cognition.
He does not have as many paraphasias (mixing up one word for another, or using a nonsense word) as he did in Regime 1.0, but those still occur.
"Timberman" when he means "lumberjack" at 11:20. Yes, "timberman" is a legit word, though not quite in the sense of "lumberjack." It is a far less-used word, though, and you can see him searching for the word before settling on "timberman."
Other language notes from the Florida "press" conference. I use "press" lightly because the event was packed with "journalists" from right-wing media falling over themselves to get into his ass for a smooch. I could hardly stomach their fawning "questions." That's a whole 'nother post, though.
Here are some language concerns from the presser.
A neologism (a type of paraphasia; a nonsense word):
1:03:11. "I like my hair 'lacen'"
He uses "thing" several times when he can't find the word he wants. This is a hallmark of dementia.
Here are the instances I found:
A subject-verb agreement error "the same things happens with prisons":
"In purpose" instead of "on purpose" (and listen again to the very mushy speech):
A paraphasia: he substitutes "Meadowlands" for "Everglades." Then he tries to cover his error mentioning "what we did up there" at Meadowlands. Really? Fact check: He did try to build a golf course on a landfill in the Meadowlands, but the deal never happened.
Also note his very slurred "invested":
A paraphasia again, where he substitutes "railroad" for "airport."
Other language issues include his perseveration in both language, like continually saying that saying countries are "hot" and "big" and in text, when he often closes his not-tweets, quite inappropriately, "Thank you for your attention to this matter!"
In addition, he perseverates on his laundry list of perceived offenses, from Hilary's emails, to the "stollen" election, to whatever witch hunt comes to mind. He does not easily let these concepts go. Sometimes you can see his brain glitch and witness the point where he reaches for one of his go-to grievances. This could be part of his cognitive disorder in general.
Cognition
This is the meat 'n potatoes of his neurological disorder. Make that gravied hamburger over mashed taters.
There are so many instances of absolutely off-the-rails discourse. It's hard to find any normal discourse anymore, unless he is reading what someone else has written. His normal is word salad, or what he calls "the weave."
You can look at just about every speech and every comment, but here are a few.
The above presser in Qatar had some incredibly bizarre moments of "thought." He sat with Middle Eastern leaders and way of introduction (I guess?) rambled for 25 minutes about nothing.
It was weird, when he went off for several minutes on drones, trees, lumberjacks, and the secretary of transportation:
The more recent press conference in Florida had a multitude of instances of cognitive difficulties. All of these nonsensical answers illustrate possible language comprehension problems, hearing problems, thought organization difficulties, or language organization difficulties. Plus, there are possible substance abuse issues.
Of course, as Sister Resister Anne stated, as a narcissist, there's also the possibility that he just likes to hear himself talk.
Here he is with a word salad when asked about how many concentration camps are planned to be built around the country. Note also the fawning bootlicker of a "journalist."
He answered nonsensically for three minutes:
Listen to his answer to a question about Medicaid. He knows nothing! And he imparts even less in this big bowl of word salad!
A reporter asked him what campaign promise he will fulfill next. His neurons go berserk. He goes on and on, including circling back to (perseverating on) water faucets and a bizarro rant on showers, dishwashers, and washing machines, before weirdly pivoting to straws.
This goes on for about five minutes. He never did answer the question.
Again, with the "old fashioned" word groceries. It's so disheartening that this is the leader of the free world.
Finally, the last question. He tried for word salad, but came up with soup. The question was about "How long will you expect detainees to stay at the facility?"
"I love Florida. I'll spend a lot of time here."
Please, please, please set up a cot for him on the tarmac!
Behavior and Physical Symptoms
Dementia and other neurological disorders often come with behavioral and physical components.
I'm not an expert on physical aspects, but there have been some concerns.
His eyes have often been wonky, particularly the right eye. I have no energy to find examples right now (those press conferences took it out of me!), but there have been instances throughout his stints in Washington.
His right leg has also been wonky. Here is a comprehensive look by Ron Filipkowski, and below that a bit of analysis by David Packman.
Montage of clips of Trump dragging his right leg over the last few months. He refuses to release his medical records. pic.twitter.com/5Am3xiOdWT
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 30, 2024
There has been speculation about his use of leg braces or a Foley catheter. The Independent looks at it. Photos are from the article.
This behavior I found was odd.
After the documents were signed, he accepted the pen the was gifted to him from the leader of Qatar without reciprocating. Disordered thought or just narcissism and selfishness?
Falling Asleep
Trump is having a hard time keeping his eyes open in Saudi Arabia pic.twitter.com/t465VZicR6
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 13, 2025
This is just one occurrence. He routinely fell asleep during his court appearances when he was on trial for 34 felonies. Reminder: he was convicted on all 34 counts.
Conjecture – Speculation – Hypothesis
Of course it is impossible to know what is really going on with him. Speculation abounds. There is obviously some cognitive decline. Dementia has many causes and his could be part of a larger set of health problems.
The obvious effects of fatigue in his brain cell (singular) make my brain cells ring, and I conjecture maybe he has Myasthenia Gravis or ALS. Neither have dementia as a hallmark symptom, but a subset of patients of both conditions do experience dementia as a part of their diagnosis. Certainly dementia can occur completely independently as well.
On these pages several years ago I speculated about Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS (November 13, 2018: "What the eff is wrong with our Preisdent*?). Since there hasn't been much of a progression of physical symptoms in the seven years since, I am not likely to think that this is the case.
It is obvious something is very wrong, and we will likely never know.
Transrcipts Erased
President Stepheratu Miller and others at The Whitewash House do not want you to readily absorb his bonkersness. They would rather have you see it, because when it is written down, the bonkerosity is really laid bare. Thusly, they have deleted all of his transcripts from Whitewash House websites.
Of course, transcripts are still widely available, though you may have to go looking. My favorite source for transcripts is Rev.com
More (a lot more) Reading on the Subject
If you want to revisit my past posts dedicated to this topic, they are, in order from earliest to latest:
A Case For Dementia (April 24, 2017). I looked at his language from a clinical perspective, how his language is full of "empty" words with a lot of nonsense and confabulation.
The Language Butcher (July 15, 2017). I examined the simplicity of his language and also his butchering syntax, making him often unintelligible.
Tongue Lashing: SCROTUSese Part 2 (July 30, 2017). I continue the analysis of his use of language.
God Bless the United Shashe (December 7, 2017). I analyze his slurred speech. It became concerning to me, as dysarthria is almost always due to a neurological issue.
"When the well is dry, they know the worth of water." (December 26, 2017). I looked at his funny way of drinking water and analyzed it clinically. With this emerging motor symptom, I tried to couple it with his cognitive-linguistic symptoms to come up with a possible diagnosis.
Concern should drive us into action and not into a depression (January 7, 2018). I noted Michael Wolff's writing, in his tell-all book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, about his habit of perseveration of ideas. Wolff quotes staffers that say he tends to tell the same story several times over and over.
"Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself" (January 19, 2018). I looked again at his cognitive abilities and the probable sham of his cognitive screening done as part of his physical exam by Dr. Ronny Jackson.
Truth is stranger than fiction (May 1, 2018). I noted some more unintelligible ramblings.
In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker. (April 17, 2019). I look at his disorganized discourse, empty at times, incoherent much of the time, with confabulations, intermittent dysarthria, occasional apraxic errors, paraphasias, and whose behaviors are paranoid, apathetic, without inhibition, and inappropriate.
Words are the physicians of the mind diseased. (December 15, 2019). Examples of disordered speech, language, and cognition of the day.
Of course, a possible dementia is not all that is going on in the addled mind. It is overlaying a big heaping helping of narcissism and psychopathy as well. But that's for another day.
Well, folks, I'm spent. Listening to and rewinding the wet farts has gotten to me. That's all for now.
RESIST!
