'Frightening': Psychiatrist warns Trump's mental fitness is slipping at 80

President Donald Trump plans on celebrating his 80th birthday on Sunday with a UFC fight on the White House lawn — and yet experts say he is in denial about his advancing age.

“As President Trump turns 80 on Sunday, he is so intent on projecting an image of relentless energy that he has installed a massive, mixed martial arts octagon on the South Lawn to mark the occasion,” reported The New York Times’ Katie Rogers on Sunday. “After watching the fight, Mr. Trump will depart Washington in the middle of the night and cross an ocean for a diplomatic summit in France. It is a schedule that seems devised to ward off questions about age and stamina as he begins his ninth decade.”

Rogers added, “But even for a president known for imposing his own reality on every situation, Mr. Trump is facing scrutiny over his age that has grown more intense with each passing year. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken in February showed that nearly six in 10 Americans think Mr. Trump is growing more erratic.”

Rogers proceeded to quote various experts who expressed alarm at Trump’s seeming decline, arguing that he is likely struggling to remain sharp in a job that is already notorious for aging its occupants because of its stressful nature.

“Somebody at 80 years old just doesn’t have the physical stamina, the mental stamina for that office,” Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama’s chief of staff and a top aide to President Bill Clinton, told the Times. “It ages you in a way that no other stress in your life does.”

Rogers also raised the alarm about the reports on the president’s health that have been provided so far by Trump’s medical team.

“In his latest report, Dr. [Sean] Barbabella wrote that the president had been evaluated by a team of 22 medical professionals, without noting their specialties,” Rogers reported. “The president had an echocardiogram and an ultrasound of the heart, after increased testing of his cardiovascular system last year and a diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency, a condition that occurs when veins have trouble moving blood back to the heart. Mr. Trump has taken two medications to lower his LDL cholesterol levels.”

Trump also claims to have used AI to determine his health, which experts question in terms of its efficacy.

“There is no tool for using A.I. to make that kind of a statement that is accepted in the cardiology community,” Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist who specializes in aging, told the Times. “It hasn’t been validated to a point where it could be used for biological age versus chronological age.”

He later added, “The doctors deserve praise and he deserves praise because of managing his cholesterol,” but noted that the doctors have been sparing about important details regarding his cardiovascular health. “It’s possible he has no buildup, but that should be specifically presented.”

Speaking with this journalist about Trump’s seeming cognitive decline, one expert argued that there are clear signs his age is catching up with him.

“There has been a frightening progression of symptoms,” Dr. Henry Abraham, a former psychiatry professor at Tufts University and the chief signatory of a letter to Congress warning about Trump’s perceived cognitive decline, told AlterNet in May. “These include grandiosity without moral safeguards, paranoia, impulsivity, vindictiveness, easy misperception of being harmed, moments of omnipotence, uncontrolled rage, and sole control over the use of nuclear weapons in a time of war. As a psychiatrist reviewing these, I can only say Yikes!”

When President Joe Biden became America’s first octogenarian president in 2022, Dr. Louise Aronson, a professor at the University of California – San Francisco’s Division of Geriatrics, said that it is important to distinguish between valid concerns about seeming decline and simple ageism.

“There is a legitimate increase in risk of disease, disability, and death with advancing age and that risk varies tremendously among octogenarians depending on their health, opportunities, and function,” Aronson told Salon at the time. She later continued, “to the extent the media focuses on age primarily, they are engaging in ageism. It would be more fair, equitable and ethical to focus more on policy and outcomes, honesty and track record, and so much more.”

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