Trump used to be more articulate. What could explain the change?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
May 23, 2017
It was the kind of utterance that makes professional transcribers question their career choice:
" … there is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign, but I can always speak for myself — and the Russians, zero."
When President Trump offered that response to a question at a press conference last week, it was the latest example of his tortured syntax, mid-thought changes of subject, and apparent trouble formulating complete sentences, let alone a coherent paragraph, in unscripted speech.
President Trump denied his campaign colluded with Russia while speaking at a press conference in May 2017.
He was not always so linguistically challenged.
STAT reviewed decades of Trump's on-air interviews and compared them to Q&A sessions since his inauguration. The differences are striking and unmistakable.
Research has shown that changes in speaking style can result from cognitive decline. STAT therefore asked experts in neurolinguistics and cognitive assessment, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists, to compare Trump's speech from decades ago to that in 2017; they all agreed there had been a deterioration, and some said it could reflect changes in the health of Trump's brain.
In interviews Trump gave in the 1980s and 1990s (with Tom Brokaw, David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey, Charlie Rose, and others), he spoke articulately, used sophisticated vocabulary, inserted dependent clauses into his sentences without losing his train of thought, and strung together sentences into a polished paragraph, which — and this is no mean feat — would have scanned just fine in print. This was so even when reporters asked tough questions about, for instance, his divorce, his brush with bankruptcy, and why he doesn't build housing for working-class Americans.
In an interview from 1987, Donald Trump talks about poverty and homelessness in the US.
Trump fluently peppered his answers with words and phrases such as "subsided," "inclination," "discredited," "sparring session," and "a certain innate intelligence." He tossed off well-turned sentences such as, "It could have been a contentious route," and, "These are the only casinos in the United States that are so rated." He even offered thoughtful, articulate aphorisms: "If you get into what's missing, you don't appreciate what you have," and, "Adversity is a very funny thing."
Now, Trump's vocabulary is simpler. He repeats himself over and over, and lurches from one subject to an unrelated one, as in this answer during an interview with the Associated Press last month:
"People want the border wall. My base definitely wants the border wall, my base really wants it — you've been to many of the rallies. OK, the thing they want more than anything is the wall. My base, which is a big base; I think my base is 45 percent. You know, it's funny. The Democrats, they have a big advantage in the Electoral College. Big, big, big advantage. … The Electoral College is very difficult for a Republican to win, and I will tell you, the people want to see it. They want to see the wall."
For decades, studies have found that deterioration in the fluency, complexity, and vocabulary level of spontaneous speech can indicate slipping brain function due to normal aging or neurodegenerative disease. STAT and the experts therefore considered only unscripted utterances, not planned speeches and statements, since only the former tap the neural networks that offer a window into brain function.
The experts noted clear changes from Trump's unscripted answers 30 years ago to those in 2017, in some cases stark enough to raise questions about his brain health. They noted, however, that the same sort of linguistic decline can also reflect stress, frustration, anger, or just plain fatigue.
Ben Michaelis, a psychologist in New York City, performed cognitive assessments at the behest of the New York Supreme Court and criminal courts and taught the technique at a hospital and university."There are clearly some changes in Trump as a speaker" since the 1980s, said Michaelis, who does not support Trump, including a "clear reduction in linguistic sophistication over time," with "simpler word choices and sentence structure. … In fairness to Trump, he's 70, so some decline in his cognitive functioning over time would be expected."
Some sentences, or partial sentences, would, if written, make a second-grade teacher despair. "We'll do some questions, unless you have enough questions," Trump told a February press conference. And last week, he told NBC's Lester Holt, "When I did this now I said, I probably, maybe will confuse people, maybe I'll expand that, you know, lengthen the time because it should be over with, in my opinion, should have been over with a long time ago."
In an interview conducted earlier this month, President Trump explains the timing of James Comey's firing.
Other sentences are missing words. Again, from the AP: "If they don't treat fairly, I am terminating NAFTA," and, "I don't support or unsupport" — leaving out a "me" in the first and an "it" (or more specific noun) in the second. Other sentences simply don't track: "From the time I took office til now, you know, it's a very exact thing. It's not like generalities."
There are numerous contrasting examples from decades ago, including this — with sophisticated grammar and syntax, and a coherent paragraph-length chain of thought — from a 1992 Charlie Rose interview: "Ross Perot, he made some monumental mistakes. Had he not dropped out of the election, had he not made the gaffes about the watch dogs and the guard dogs, if he didn't have three or four bad days — and they were real bad days — he could have conceivably won this crazy election."
The change in linguistic facility could be strategic; maybe Trump thinks his supporters like to hear him speak simply and with more passion than proper syntax. "He may be using it as a strategy to appeal to certain types of people," said Michaelis. But linguistic decline is also obvious in two interviews with David Letterman, in 1988 and 2013, presumably with much the same kind of audience. In the first, Trump threw around words such as "aesthetically" and "precarious," and used long, complex sentences. In the second, he used simpler speech patterns, few polysyllabic words, and noticeably more fillers such as "uh" and "I mean."
Donald Trump shares his take on Ross Perot's 1992 presidential campaign.
The reason linguistic and cognitive decline often go hand in hand, studies show, is that fluency reflects the performance of the brain's prefrontal cortex, the seat of higher-order cognitive functions such as working memory, judgment, understanding, and planning, as well as the temporal lobe, which searches for and retrieves the right words from memory. Neurologists therefore use tests of verbal fluency, and especially how it has changed over time, to assess cognitive status.
Those tests ask, for instance, how many words beginning with W a patient can list, and how many breeds of dogs he can name, rather than have patients speak spontaneously. The latter "is too hard to score," said neuropsychologist Sterling Johnson, of the University of Wisconsin, who studies brain function in Alzheimer's disease. "But everyday speech is definitely a way of measuring cognitive decline. If people are noticing [a change in Trump's language agility], that's meaningful."
Although neither Johnson nor other experts STAT consulted said the apparent loss of linguistic fluency was unambiguous evidence of mental decline, most thought something was going on.
John Montgomery, a psychologist in New York City and adjunct professor at New York University, said "it's hard to say definitively without rigorous testing" of Trump's speaking patterns, "but I think it's pretty safe to say that Trump has had significant cognitive decline over the years."
No one observing Trump from afar, though, can tell whether that's "an indication of dementia, of normal cognitive decline that many people experience as they age, or whether it's due to other factors" such as stress and emotional upheaval, said Montgomery, who is not a Trump supporter.
Even a Trump supporter saw and heard striking differences between interviews from the 1980s and 1990s and those of 2017, however. "I can see what people are responding to," said Dr. Robert Pyles, a psychiatrist in suburban Boston. He heard "a difference in tone and pace. … What I did not detect was any gaps in mentation or meaning. I don't see any clear evidence of neurological or cognitive dysfunction."
Johnson cautioned that language can deteriorate for other reasons. "His language difficulties could be due to the immense pressure he's under, or to annoyance that things aren't going right and that there are all these scandals," he said. "It could also be due to a neurodegenerative disease or the normal cognitive decline that comes with aging." Trump will be 71 next month.
Northwestern University psychology professor Dan McAdams, a critic of Trump who has inferred his psychological makeup from his public behavior, said any cognitive decline in the president might reflect normal aging and not dementia. "Research shows that virtually nobody is as sharp at age 70 as they were at age 40," he said. "A wide range of cognitive functions, including verbal fluency, begin to decline long before we hit retirement age. So, no surprise here."
Researchers have used neurolinguistics analysis of past presidents to detect, retrospectively, early Alzheimer's disease. In a famous 2015 study, scientists at Arizona State University evaluated how Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush spoke at their news conferences. Reagan's speech was riddled with indefinite nouns (something, anything), "low imageability" verbs (have, go, get), incomplete sentences, limited vocabulary, simple grammar, and fillers (well, basically, um, ah, so) — all characteristic of cognitive problems. That suggested Reagan's brain was slipping just a few years into his 1981-1989 tenure; that decline continued. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1994. Bush showed no linguistic deterioration; he remained mentally sharp throughout his 1989-1993 tenure and beyond.
Sharon Begley
Senior Writer, Science and Discovery
Sharon covers science and discovery.
sharon.begley@statnews.com @sxbegle
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I chose this three year old article to make a point. It was published long before the election, so no one can claim, "But Trump". The point is, that Trump's mental state was called into question as now Biden's is. It is all just political hackery meant to discredit a person and I think we can all do better than that. If we are going to pick a candidate, it should be based on what they have or have not done. Enough with their mental capabilities. It is just a deflection from the real issues.
I say it's untreated syphilis along with Aspergers' along with mini strokes along with dementia along with all the cocaine he's snorting.
One in four men over seventy suffer from some form of dementia or Alzheimers. I think the cognitive function of both candidates is a fair topic for discussion - (it just shouldn't be the only topic for discussion). The last President before Trump who was close to his age was Reagan - who by the time he was Trump and Biden's age had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
Good seed.
I can't trust my reaction.
Just say what you were going to say.
I want to rejoice, because if we have proof that Trump is mentally ill, even his supporters must agree that he must stand aside.
But everything we have seen for five years proves that even if they know he's insane, they'll follow him anyway.
So I'm depressed.
even his supporters must agree that he must stand aside.
No they won't.
Well, as somebody famous just got through saying:
"It is all just political hackery meant to discredit a person and I think we can all do better than that. If we are going to pick a candidate, it should be based on what they have or have not done. Enough with their mental capabilities. It is just a deflection from the real issues."
why should they, they're 3-0 on getting the mentally defective re-elected. nixon, raygun, and gb/jr.
Honestly, the before and after videos sound the same to me. He's probably a little bit slower now, but the style is the same. It seems like he's always had 5 or 6 thoughts going on at once while he's speaking. You want to see before and after examples of cognitive decline? Look at that guy he's running against.
Tacos,
They both sound different from when they were younger and I posted a video of Trump sounding the same way as Biden does. So basically, the conclusion should be, that whatever man gets into office, they both suffer from mental decline or that like any of us, are just a little bit slower than when we were in our 30's?
It's a question of relative degree. Everyone slows down, yes, but Biden is dramatically worse than he was just a few years ago and worse than Trump, as well.
I don't think so. I have seen video of both. How they walk and how they talk. I think it's just part of the natural aging process and I am not particularly concerned about either in this respect.
Perrie, Perrie, there is nothing wrong with the President's faculties. Joe Biden is mentally deficient. Three weeks from tonight you will see it along with everyone else.
It is a complete difference from what he was in 2017,” Mike McCormick, who worked as a White House stenographer for 15 years and with Biden from 2011 to 2017, told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview. “He’s lost a step and he doesn’t seem to have the same mental acuity as he did four years ago.”
“He doesn’t have the energy, he doesn’t have the pace of his speaking,” McCormick said. “He’s a different guy.”
Sean,
And this guys professional qualifications are what? He is a White House stenographer who is now talking for the "Free Beacon. Come on.... you are proving my point.
You're just mad because not everyone is swarming to your latest hit piece about Joe Biden.
How convenient of you to miss my point. I opened with it:
I can post a current one just for you.
"How convenient of you to miss my point. I opened with it:"
It's an art form to the [deleted] supporters, along with deflection, projection, and denial.
How soon before Trump says he made all those derogatory comments about the military but so what ?
Here are comments made by Biden a few days ago. No teleprompter, no script.
He is fine. I think it helped him to slow down a little bit, which is of course appropriate for a funeral.
We can only wish Trump were capable of making comments like this , which exhibit a little thoughtfulness. I don't think anyone has ever seen Trump appear to be thoughtful.
John,
They are not interested to see that Biden is fine. They want to push that he is not. It is about agendas.
With the covid response not working in his favor, and the economy faltering, and the wall not built, Trump is down to a couple themes to run on - Biden and Harris are communists and Biden is a confused old man. It's all they got.
Trump sure can't run on his own character and personality.
There I have to agree with you.
Plus, didn't/doesn't Joe Biden have a problem with stuttering?
Indeed he does, a life long one, which I have mentioned several times. But maybe this is worth mentioning:
About Stuttering
COGNITIVE ABILITY
Recent studies have shown that some adults who stutter have different cognitive processing abilities than those who do not stutter. 5 , 6 One small study reported that adults who stutter have longer reaction times than fluent speakers when presented with increasingly complex cognitive tasks. 5 In persons who stuttered, these cognitive processes involved more use of the right hemisphere of the brain than was used in fluent speakers.
I was mentioning the stutter only because that is why he must refer/probably, to written notes, and why he thinks before he speaks and just doesn't blurt out whatever is in his mind/head. Or just start to rant and ramble like the 'president'. I see no decline in Joe Bidens' cognition.
Let's face it - the stress is just too much for him.
Before he ran for President, he had to pretend to be his own publicist to get any press time.
Now it's 24/7 with a significant portion of the entire world watching for any misstep. Add to of that, he has been told that he is God's Chosen One. Then of course, his tax returns will come out.
A competent leader would have selected a skilled and competent staff that would handle tedious detail.
Trump has surrounded himself with incompetence so he is really and truly on his own.
[deleted]
[deleted]
You've got to be kidding me. Deleted? What the hell is this?
trumpturd WAS NEVER ARTICULATE.
Although I don't expect I'll be able to watch them, I think Trump's performance in the debates will tell the story.
If his family had any sense at all they would come forward and admit he is not well to avoid all the lawsuits and preserve a little bit of dignity for themselves. He truly is aging like all other Presidents before him and he clearly has some health issues that he is trying to keep hidden.