Donald Trump’s rapidly worsening cognitive failure is out of control

| 10:10 am EDT April 5, 2018
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Throughout the second half of 2017, Donald Trump’s words and behavior in public increasingly pointed to some type of worsening cognitive failure. He often struggled to complete a coherent sentence during speeches. His tweets were often incoherent. He blankly wandered out of joint press conferences and signing ceremonies while they were still going on. It got so bad that by the end of 2017 the mainstream media was finally talking about it, and Trump had his doctor give him a simplistic cognitive test during a physical. Trump “passed” the test, and the media buzz went away.

Over the past three months since Trump succeeded in passing a test that required him to correctly identify a picture of a rhinoceros, he’s continued to show even more signs of worsening cognitive failure, even as the media has largely ignored this. This week, however, things have become so egregious that the issue has come back into focus.

First, Trump gave a strange and semi-coherent speech to a group of young children during the White House Easter Egg Roll event on Monday. He appeared to lose awareness of who his audience was, as he began rambling about policy issues that the kids couldn’t possibly have understood. Then he said this: ” I want to thank the White House Historical Association, and all of the people that work so hard with Melania, with everybody to keep this incredible house, or building, or whatever you want to call it, because there really is no name for it.” At the end of a sentence in which he had stated the name of the White House, he ultimately insisted that there was no name for it.

Taken in isolation, this could be written off as merely an instance of being tongue-tied or distracted. But within the larger context, something is wrong here. On Tuesday, Donald Trump tweeted that something must be done about Mexico’s weak southern border. On Wednesday, Trump tweeted that Mexico has a strong southern border. He increasingly seems incapable of remembering his own positions and beliefs from one day to the next. This is getting worse, and quickly. It’s time for Trump to take a real cognitive test. We all know he’s not fully senile. But he’s too far gone to occupy – what’s the name for it again? – the White House.