Trump: These things were coming cylinders, no wings, no nothing, and they’re coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace with a circle, reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have.. then I heard we lost pic.twitter.com/5rtC7wJH00
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 10, 2024
I found this transcript on Facebook:
He was speaking to the Detroit Economic Club, in Detroit — and bashed Detroit. At one point he called Detroit a “once great city.” At another point, he warned his audience that if Kamala Harris becomes president, the whole nation will be Detroit. “It will be like Detroit. Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president,” Trump said. “You’re going to have a mess on your hands.”
I take it this did not go over well. I suspect he didn’t entirely understand where he was. Early stage Alzheimers would account for this. If I’m right, at this point the man is on autopilot. He isn’t entirely certain where he is, but his handlers can put him in front of a microphone and he can still do his free-association rambles. He still knows people and things he’s known for a long time, but he can’t retain new information. And the old stuff probably gets jumbled. He may have notes or a teleprompter in front of him reminding him that he’s supposed to talk about the economy. But if I’m right, he’s going to forget how to read soon. And I’m betting his children and his top campaign advisers know this is happening and are working to keep it hidden, at least until after the election..
If I’m right, there won’t be any more one-on-one interviews of Trump, or forums in which Trump has to answer more than one question. That would lay bare his inability to take in new information. He may not be able to follow multiple questions or remember what he just said. The only exception might be if he talks to a partisan interviewer who understands the situation and gives him prompts to keep him on topic, and who would allow the video of the interview to be edited.
There are still people, like this guy, who think Trump’s verbal strangeness is part of some master plan. I don’t think so.
Note that Trump, having dropped out of the 60 Minutes interview, now wants CBS to lose its license for going ahead with the Harris interview.
In recent days, the former president has lambasted the Harris interview, accusing CBS News of editing the sit-down with correspondent Bill Whitaker. On Thursday, Trump used his Truth Social platform to again take aim at what he alleged to be “a giant Fake News Scam,” accusing “60 Minutes” of replacing Harris’ answers with another to “make her look better.”
“60 Minutes is a major part of the News Organization of CBS, which has just created the Greatest Fraud in Broadcast History,” Trump wrote. “CBS should lose its license, and it should be bid out to the Highest Bidder, as should all other Broadcast Licenses, because they are just as corrupt as CBS — and maybe even WORSE!”
Um, this isn’t rational. But it’s consistent with Alzheimers. People with Alzheimers sometimes imagine wildly random threatening things. And giant faucet, anyone?
See also Michigan newspaper issues correction after Trump claims he won man of year award. More evidence Trump is seriously confused.
Other Stuff to Read
ProPublica, by Robert Downen and Jeremy Schwartz. In Texas’ Third-Largest County, the Far Right’s Vision for Local Governing Has Come to Life
Slate, by Dahlia Lithwick. John Roberts Has Lost the Public. Does He Care?
The Atlantic, by Jim Nichols. The Moment of Truth. Lovely essay.
One nit, it isn't early stage Alzheimer's, it's far more advanced than that. As a caregiver to a family member with moderate dementia/Alzheimer's who can still function fairly well I can tell you she's far more coherent and aware than trump is.
He's pretty deep into his dementia and coupled with his being a narcissistic sociopath I think that's what is producing his rambling, forgetful, rants. Falling back on the familiar is common behavior for dementia patients and the worse the dementia the more they live in the past and repeat themselves because forming new original, coherent thoughts and ideas is just too difficult.
It's hard to know when you aren't spending extended time with them. And I have only my mother's case to go by. Trump may still be able to seem fairly normal, by his standards, in social situations with people he's known for a long time, which is what I call "early." He may not yet have trouble recognizing people he's known for a long time. He's probably not so far gone that he has to be monitored to be sure he washes and changes clothes and gets a meal now and then. He's still playing golf, although how competently I do not know. Plus per his niece Mary Trump, for his entire life Trump has been a walking complex of personality and psychological disorders, whicih complicates the picture.
Back when Trump was president there was a time when, at the White House, he had all these people sitting at the table, with him at the center. Right across from him, was Giuliani. Trump starts talking and mentions Giuliani, and then starts looking around asking, "where's Giuliani," and he was right across from him.
Trump's been dealing with symptoms of decline, caused by senility, dementia or something else, for a while now. But you can look at clips of Trump back when he was president, and now, and the difference is noticeable.
Trump has both ethical and cognitive deficits. The ethical deficits are lifelong and should not be medicalized.
I have a family member with dementia.
Lately, her paranoia is severe. For example, she insists "some people" came into her house while she was in the hospital, and pulled down her ceiling. They sold her ceiling for cash, and then replaced it with a poorly constructed, cheaper ceiling.
She also believes people are living in her basement. We showed her the basement door is securely locked and covered with cobwebs. It hasn't been opened in years. But her paranoia tells her people are living down there and rearranging her stuff.
Whatever pathology trump's brain is manifesting, it seems his paranoia is increasing as well.
I want to call something out – your family member may not have paranoia. If, in your world, you took your book into the sitting room, laid it next to your favorite chair, and went to make tea, only to find it gone when you came back, the correct, rational assessment is "someone moved my book."
And it's true – especially if you took your book with you to make tea, set it down, and forgot you brought it with you. Someone *did* move it – you! – but because that section of memory is absent, the next possibility, "someone not-me moved it" is what remains. If your family member remembers when the ceiling was first installed, and doesn't remember the millions of little things that marred it, *and* doesn't remember the amount of time that has passed, "someone sold it and replaced it with this piece of crap" is, again, the most sensible explanation – *given* the absence of those memories.
This is one of the times when (I've heard) there's a lot more frustration and anger, because it's when the patient can start to see the cracks in reality. They have enough solid memories to be that much more distressed by what's missing/what's changed.
And let me tell you, when I say "see the cracks in *reality*," that's exactly what it feels like. We don't expect books to magically move from the living room to the kitchen – and, we don't expect our memories to be so poor that we can't even *consider* that maybe we took the book into the kitchen. After a lifetime of being able to trust memory to mirror reality, it can take a very long time to recognize that it no longer does so, and, that "very long time" can be scary.
I’m sure the world becomes a more frightening place for people with dementia. The world is not presenting itself to them in a coherent way.
I didn't want to go into too much detail about my family member, but I used the word "paranoia" because she has also accused various relatives of plotting against her, stealing from her, etc.
She was always a somewhat suspicious person (which saved her from more than a few attempted phone scams) but the past year she seems to believe everyone is against her, friends and family.
I believe trump's mind is going, but I'm not sure how much of what he's saying is his own paranoia or purposeful lies to manipulate his base.
Well, and I sure didn't want to sound like I was probing your family, either; and I hope I didn't sound like I wanted to downplay your experiences.
It's too bad 60 Minutes editing the promo of the interview, and then aired a differentedit, giving this loon a leg to stand on.
I bet 60 Minutes always edits interviews, if for no other reason to fit them into the time slot or to take out bits where the subject wanted a bathroom break.. From the perspective of journalism, this is not controversial. Print media reporters who submit interviews to the news desk often find their work pared down a bit also. Trying to make a Big Bleeping Deal out of this is genuinely pathetic. It wasn't a particularly friendly interview for Harris, anyway, so I can't imagine what the MAGAts issues are.
It’s a bit like when grandpa insisted on driving, had insisted on ignoring me desperately trying to direct him with the map, and we just kept on winding up at the same naval base guard gate over and over and over again, until the guard finally warned me that he’d call the cops to make me drive if we showed up at his guard gate again.
Except without any cops, without any guard gates, and without any terrified relatives white-knuckling it in the back seat. And all the cult worshippers too I suppose. We never got to have any cult worshippers.
Yep, seems so.
Chris Christie made an observation today in the NYT.
That makes it quite a huge problem. Trump is likely to continue to project and deny. Today Aurora CO was the target of his projected dysfunction. Objective ground level reality failed to validate his perceptions of chaos and dysfunction in Aurora, news sources report.
All Trump sees is a projection of his problems, which are distorted by his denial. As Christie observes they then become the most important problems in the world. What a mess. A mess in Trump's mind only seen by him and his cult.
Yesterday it was Detroit. Tomorrow another windmill to joust.
I don't doubt Stump has some sort of dementia that seems more apparent lately but I'm not sure the Detroit comment is part of that. The rant has received lots of ink and excites his base. He's telling his voters that if you elect a black women (even though he has said she's not black in the past) the whole country look like Detroit. That is racist speak for the blacks will run roughshod all over the country. It just seems like more of the same racist garbage he has been peddling for years. It is sort of expected at this point and boring. Saying it in Detroit is bizarre and bizarre makes headlines which is all really wants?
Yes, obviously. Duh. But that's not what I'm pointing to. (Except that he made headlines for saying that to Detroit business leaders, which is not going to win him any votes in swing-state Michigan.) Explain to me what the "Biden circles" represent.
I have no idea what Biden circles are and I don’t think Stump does either? I don't deny he going down the drain mentally and physically, I'm just saying the Detroit comment is more of the same racist shit he has been spewing for years?
Again, kind of obvious. I assumed most of us here recognized that without my having to point it out. But that’s another tell; he can always dish up the same junk he’s been dishing up *for years.* What he can’t do is process and discuss anything new.
Sorry to be hard on you. I have the Mother of All Head Colds right now and am not dealing with it very well.
Thanks for that. My rough edges sometimes don't work but the "duh" got to me? I try to add something to the conversatin maybe not always eloquently? I just think as you do that Stump is a dangerous man, assigning that danger to his mental decline is part of the picture but in a way it gives him a way out. His base includes a bunch of low info olds, so they may see the attacks on his mental decline the same way I saw the attacks on Biden. I'm an old my mom is old I don't like ageism. The two are not even close (I think Joe is certainly up to the job) Trump is well past it, but to me he was gone in 2016, he's a racist piece of shit. He was a racist piece of shit when he ran in 2016 and he's still a racist piece of shit today just eight years older. We are all eight years older! I hope you feel better soon!
He loved those circles. They were beautiful circles. All eight of them.
Let me crazywash that. His mind went down the rabbit hole for a bit and he watched the capitellar blow eight? smoke rings.
https://media1.tenor.com/images/37cc399289ba774cd4c02e590d5d08ed/tenor.gif?itemid=16247018
Circles,,, uh yeah, its the aliens again, Biden and Harris are bringing in as many as they can, even the ones from outer space, and he sees the crop circles – clear evidence of the alien invasion, now everyone knows!
Best I can tell the circls are part of the cognitive test that he may have taken at some point? Square peg round hole, circles? Hell I don't know, Stump is fucking nuts anything he says can mean anything to anybody.
With Putin, there was likely some kompromat. I definitely don't think there's some family conspiracy or any secret plan Trump has dreamed up.
But my fallback position still holds: follow the money.
There's the biggest donor to Trump supporting PACs. The banking heir, Timothy Mellon. He's spent $165 million over the years aiding Trump. He previously invested at least $20 into RFK Jr's campaign
There's the Perlmutters, Linda McMahon, the Uihleins and others. I doubt they're all in some grand conspiracy, but there are a few names out their that have a history of supporting conspiracy theories or messing with knowledge of millions of private lives via psychological profiles, like the Mercers.
There's Musk, and I'm especially suspicious of Peter Thiel, who proclaimed he wasn't gonna spend campaign cash on Trump. Which still might be true.
I won't promote my conspiracy theories, but I will point journos to people who need to be investigated thoroughly. Thiel, the Mercers and Musk would be highest on my list.
Who supported Vance for the Senate? Thiel may not be backing Trump yet still be backing Vance.
Is it possible that a small select group of election buyers are trying to get the ticket elected? But plan to invoke the 25th Amendment to put Vance in the White House?
It's fairly untested as a workable scheme. Vance and Trump's cabinet could start the process, but Trump can contest it. It would ultimately require a 2/3 vote by both Houses of Congress and the GOP can't do it. However, if Dr diagnosis makes it clear that significant dementia is evident, would Democrats vote no, to keep Trump in office?
That's hard to predict.
But certain actors and scuzzballs like Bannon and Stone and Miller might be willing to invest time and effort and cash to make that bet.
I'm suggesting that the Big Cash wants to keep Trump directed to use fairly popular themes (immigration, racism, etc) in his appearances while keeping his brain damage as hidden as his handlers want.
With the real plan is making Vance the malleable emperor?
I ain't saying it's true at all, but I hope some enterprising young journalists would thoroughly research the possibilities.
Agree that the puppet masters (the oligarchy cabal) have selected the "heir to the throne" (Vance).
And their party platform is, of course, more money for the super wealthy, at the expense of everybody else.
“I definitely don’t think there’s some family conspiracy or any secret plan Trump has dreamed up.” I don’t think so, either. It just says something about Trump’s priorities that at a time the U.S. was way behind the rest of the developed world in testing, and there was an extreme shortage of these testing machines, which were not home test kits but meant to be used in hospitals, that Trump sent machine(s) to his buddy Putin.
O.T. "Comet likely last seen when Neanderthals walked Earth could soon dazzle in the night sky"
I saw this headline over at CNN and chuckled, only fitting that we can see the comet now with at least 70 million neanderthals (magats) walking the earth now! Me and my wife could see the comet last night, pretty cool!
Not competent to stand trial.
Possibly, yes.
Frontotemporal Dementia is not Alzheimers, it is senile dementia that presents differently with different symptoms, which is what Trump's symptoms look like.
It’s some kind of dementia, certainly, and I’m not a physician. And I’m guessing neither of us has gotten close enugh to Trump to really know what all of his symptoms are. But I looked up the symptoms of Frontotemporal Dementia, and Trump’s issues still seem closer to Alzheimer’s to me.
https://www.salon.com/2024/03/25/forensic-psychiatrist-on-physical-signs-of-mental-decline-changes-in-movement-and-gait/
According to DeVega, "The former president appears to be suffering from behavioral variant fronto-temporal dementia, Dr. Zoffman concludes, and needs to be evaluated by neurologists who specialize in the condition."
Zoffman told DeVega that the things she is observing with Trump include "changes in speech patterns with many fewer and simpler words" and "difficulty pronouncing words" as well as "frequent repetition of words and phrases as if his mind is stuck in a loop."
The forensic psychiatrist also told DeVega that she is noticing "changes in movement and gait" and "changes in judgment and impulse control."
"My clinical experience and these collected observations are congruent with the diagnostic criteria for behavioral variant fronto-temporal dementia (FTD)," Zoffman told DeVega. "People presenting with such a cluster of observations should undergo expert assessment. This diagnosis is often largely based on external observations and collateral reporting from others close to the person."
Zoffman added, "Early in the disease, the individual may be aware of changes, but as frontal lobe deterioration progresses the capacity for self-awareness diminishes."
This is not the only person I have seen associate Trump and FTD.
Yes, I reaed that when it was making the rounds in social media a few months ago. Neither one of us can know exactly what's up with him, but Alzheimers also accounts for his public behavior and cognitive decline very nicely. Also he's at an age when Alzheimers symptoms commonly start to show up. And Trump's father had Alzheimers. FTD tends to develop in younger people.
Cundgulag, Swami!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzJIej8h5q4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO6QUgGMp2A
Transcription error:
trump said Biden had "eight circles" but the truth is "ate circles", circles being donuts.
Biden couldn't fill ate circles so he had to ate them plane.
Ah, homophones I'm very popular with the homophones…94%, &%5, 88%…
I believe this will sound very familiar to the cult.
It's weird that Trump veered off into that "circle" riff, but what he's saying is a reference to the fact that Biden was following COVID guidelines at his 2020 rallies and positioning attendees in circles socially distanced from one another. Here's a USA Today story from September 2020. There's a photo of attendees in the circles.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/22/fact-check-joe-biden-events-smaller-because-covid-19/5780898002/
This, of course, was accompanied by Trump mockery: "You know why he puts the circles? Because he wants to be like correct with COVID, but it's not really — because they can't get anybody to fill up a room."
As for insulting Detroit in Detroit, he's just like any New York City racist from, say, 1971: "The city was great before the n*****s and the sp*cs took over!" I'm sure he assumes that there are more suburban and exurban racists all over America who feel that way about all racially diverse cities than there are people who are offended by what he said. And he might be right about that.
If Biden has 8 circles, then tRump (always superior in every possible way) must have 9, which purely coincidentally I believe is the number of circles of Hell described in Dante's Inferno.
OT; while I am not in favor of the Dems sending hurricanes to red states, I would like to thank them for sending the Northern Lights down this way, that was nice of them to do that, seeing as how they are in control of all such things.
The tape of Trump in his early forties gave a read on what is left of
Trump. It was a find of Woodward in old piles of misplaced stuff. He and Bernstein taped an interview then, before Trump got into reality TV or politics. The NYT had it a few days ago with an article.
At that time Trump did talk in complete sentences. Sentences as defined as a complete thought. His sentences then related to the questions asked and seemed to be honest attempts to communicate on topic. That part of Trump is gone. Other parts are the same though as one sees in many types of mental deterioration.
When asked about his future Trump was as Trump is now. Rather than a guiding force in his life or a goal, he talked of intuition. Even then he viewed his intuition as the "skill" that he admired in himself. His best deals happened when he acted on intuition, not on advice or principle he claimed. Here he seems to be the same old Trump he was then. He told a rather coherent story about a prize fighter who upset what was thought a better fighter, a favorite if you will. When asked how he achieved an upset, Trump related his reply. The fighter said he won because he just went with the punches. Trump thought he did too. He just charts his future by going with the punches. That was his winning strategy too.
Is it any wonder why the previous Trump administration was like watching that steel ball careen around the bumpers, pegs, and devices of an old pin ball machine. We were there with him while he was going with the punches. All we could do is shake the machine a bit and hope not to get a tilt. Once in a while you might get a chance to flip a flipper and get a reprieve.
Harris has it right. We best not go back. Way too risky. Other chunks of Trump are still flying off. At least when he was forty, he could communicate better about his self-guidance system. Now all you get are lies, flights of fancy, and "oh shiny" moments.
Sorry. I messed up the sign out.
Great comparison to steel ball in old pinball machine, perfect!
"Wow — this was weird. Trump wrapped up his "town hall" in Oaks, Pennsylvania, after just a few questions, and right after he said he would take a few more questions. More music then played while Trump stood around on stage. Deeply bizarre scenes." – Aaron Rupar, https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.bsky.social/post/3l6j522nxch2m
I really wonder if there's any level of dementia Trump can display that will shift, well, anything.
My husband died after 10 years with Alzheimer’s. I was his only caregiver 24/7. I noticed that 45 had the start of dementia more than a year ago.
My husband, even several years before it was obvious, could talk to people who had no idea about his condition. He would say weird things sometimes or stay silent and smile. It was so obvious to me that 45 was on the onset of the malady. My father-in-law had it, just like 45’s father, too.