Trump’s Mental Fitness Deserves Serious Scrutiny, Argues Journalist Amid Bizarre Speeches
Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images
Donald Trump’s recent speeches have raised further concerns about the former president’s mental fitness, with journalists calling for increased attention to his apparent cognitive decline. In a piece for The New Republic, Greg Sargent highlighted MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle, who referred to Trump as a “damaged, delusional, old man who again might get re-elected to the presidency of the United States.”
Sargent noted that Barnicle’s blunt assessment on Morning Joe should have opened the door for more media scrutiny of Trump’s mental state, but that hasn’t happened. “If Biden’s age merited extensive, focused coverage because his fitness for the job was naturally of interest to voters,” Sargent wrote, “then surely Trump’s visible incoherence, cognitive impairment, and increasingly strange flights of fantasy deserve equivalent treatment.”
Despite these concerns, Sargent argued that newsroom leaders and major media outlets have largely ignored Trump’s erratic behavior. However, with Trump’s increasingly bizarre public statements, Sargent believes the issue has become harder for the media to ignore.
“How did we get here?” Barnicle asked during Morning Joe, blaming the media for allowing Trump’s outrageous comments to go unchallenged. “Donald Trump can say whatever crazy things he wants to say, about submarines, and sharks, and electric batteries,” Barnicle lamented, criticizing the lack of serious discussion surrounding Trump’s odd remarks.
Sargent pointed out that while occasional stories, such as a New York Times piece on Trump’s vulgar language, touch on the issue, many of Trump’s “whacked-out statements” don’t receive adequate coverage. He contrasted this with the extensive reporting on President Biden’s age, particularly before Biden’s decision to run for re-election.
Sargent raised an important question: “Why don’t things like Trump’s obvious cognitive impairment, his frequent inability to speak and think coherently, his tendency to invent things on the fly that are wildly disconnected from reality…go to his core mental and characterological capacity to do the job as president?”
He proposed an experiment—imagine switching Trump’s name into reports about Biden’s mental fitness. Such an approach, he argued, would prompt journalists to dig deeper into Trump’s mental state, speak to associates who witness his behavior, and question Trump directly about his lapses.
Sargent concluded by calling this issue “the much bigger story that’s unfolding right at the end of all of our noses,” urging the media to pay closer attention to Trump’s mental fitness as the 2024 election looms.
