Is Trump mentally OK? A look back at the president’s unusual behavior in 2025 | Donald Trump
In a speech at the White House in December, Donald Trump said that over the past 11 months, his administration had brought about “more positive change” than any administration in U.S. history.
“There’s never been anything like this,” Trump added.
It is true that his second term has been unusual, particularly on certain points that the president might not like. Indeed, Trump, 79, has demonstrated erratic and sometimes confused behavior throughout 2025, raising questions about his mental and physical performance.
Trump appeared to fall asleep during some meetings; among other things, he strayed from the subject, launching into bizarre sequences about interior decoration or whales and birds. His public appearances lacked focus and he used his speeches to ramble about how Barack Obama walked down the stairs or to make up stories about the Unabomber.
This unpredictable behavior has forced the White House to repeatedly defend Trump’s mental acuity, often in hyperbolic terms. Trump himself boasted that he “passed” an assessment testing for early signs of dementia, but during his 11 months in office, the examples of unusual behavior piled up.
This was the case in mid-July, when Trump recounted in detail how his uncle, the late Professor John Trump, had taught Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Trump recalled: “I said, ‘What kind of student was Uncle John? Dr. John Trump.’ I said, “What kind of student?” And then he said, “Seriously, good. He said, “He corrected–he corrected everybody.” » But it didn’t work out very well for him.
The problem is that this can’t be true. First, Trump’s uncle died in 1985, and Kaczynski was not publicly identified as an Unabomber until 1996. Second, Kaczynski did not study at MIT.
Later that month, in a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Trump abruptly shifted from the immigration debate to the “windmills” debate. Speaking non-stop and spontaneously for two minutes, Trump claimed without evidence that whales were “locomotive” and that wind power “kills birds” (the proportion of birds killed by turbines is tiny compared to the number killed by house cats and those that fly into power lines).
Another incident that raised questions about Trump’s state of mind occurred in September. Trump summoned the nation’s top military commanders to a meeting in Virginia and gave them a speech touting his supposed successes before saying this:
America is respected again as a country. We were not respected with Biden. They watched him fall down the stairs every day. Every day the guy falls down the stairs.
Trump continued:
I said, “He’s not our president.” We can’t have it. I’m very careful, you know, when I go down the stairs – like if I’m on stairs, like these stairs, I’m very – I walk very slowly. No one has to set a record, just try not to fall because it doesn’t work well. A few of our presidents have fallen and this has become part of their legacy.
We don’t want that. You have to walk slowly and slowly. You don’t – you don’t have to set a record. Be cool, be cool when you go down, but don’t go down the stairs. That’s the one thing with Obama, I had no respect for him as president, but he was coming down those stairs, I never saw him – da da da da da da, bop, bop, bop, he was coming down the stairs, he couldn’t hold it. I said, that’s great, I don’t want to do it. I guess I could do it, but eventually bad things will happen and it only takes one time, but he’s done a bad job as president.
The White House has repeatedly rejected questions about Trump’s mental acuity, with a spokesperson telling the Guardian earlier this year that his “mental acuity is second to none,” while Ronny Jackson, a Republican congressman who previously served as Trump’s doctor, claimed he was the “healthiest president this nation has ever seen.”
Speculation about Trump’s health is unlikely to go away, however, with the Daily Beast reporting that Democrats are considering making his mental acuity and physical fitness a key issue ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
They will have a good amount of ammunition. In November, Trump, the oldest person to be inaugurated president, said he had had an MRI, but could not remember which part of the body received the scan. That month, he also appeared to fall asleep during a meeting in the Oval Office – the same thing happened at a cabinet meeting in early December, and again two weeks later, at a press conference announcing cannabis reforms.
Earlier this year, Trump confused Albania and Armenia when discussing a peace deal involving the latter; discussing autism in a speech at the White House, he reflected on “certain elements of genius that can be given to a baby.” In announcing that 13 grants would be awarded to study autism, Trump added: “Nothing bad can happen, only good can happen.” »
Among these moments of confusion were incidents where Trump lashed out without inhibition. In December alone, he declared Somali immigrants to be “trash” and, in a move that shocked even some Republicans, he essentially blamed Rob Reiner for his own death.
Trump finds time to say and do these things despite a reduced schedule. On average, Trump’s scheduled events don’t start until around noon and typically end at 5 p.m., a shorter workday than during his first term, the New York Times found, while the number of his official appearances has declined by 39%.
A White House official told the Guardian: “Not all of the president’s meetings are included in the daily guidance distributed to the press. »
Liz Huston, the White House deputy press secretary, said in an emailed statement: “The Guardian is a left-wing mouthpiece that should be deeply embarrassed to publish this bullshit. As the president’s physician, Dr. Sean Barbabella, has made clear time and again — and as the American people see with their own eyes every day — President Trump remains in excellent overall health.”
“President Trump’s relentless work ethic, unparalleled energy and historical accessibility stand in stark contrast to what we have seen over the past four years, when the failed mainstream media intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s severe mental and physical decline from the American people. Now pushing these false and desperate narratives about President Trump is why Americans’ trust in the media has fallen to a new all-time low.”
A Pew Research Center survey in November found that 56% of American adults “report having a lot or some confidence in the information they receive from national news organizations,” down 11 points from March 2025 and 20 points lower from 2016.
That same month, a Gallup poll found that 36% of American adults approved of Trump’s performance, the lowest rating of his second term. Earlier this year, YouGov found that half of Americans think Trump is too old to be president.
Throughout the year, the White House fiercely defended Trump against accusations that he was in decline. However, questions about Trump, who turns 80 in June, are unlikely to go away.
