Trump co-author believes MAGA leader has 'lost a great deal mentally'

Former President Donald Trump is losing his mental acuity, "Art of the Deal" co-author Tony Schwartz told MSNBC's Ari Melber on Thursday.

This is more apparent than ever after he was crushed in the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Schwartz argued.

"He is a very different man than the man in the late 1980s and the man I somewhat interacted with in the 2016 election and the 2020 election," said Schwartz. "This is a man who's lost a great deal mentally. He is not — this notion that he, that he is still, like, capable of exciting a crowd, I'm just not sure that I believe, beyond that 20 or 25 percent that are absolutely the core, is true anymore."

Melber then played another piece of audio of Trump, noting the former president "muses, waxes" and sometimes goes off script of the "PR tricks, even though he's such a PR person." Melber said Trump aides he interviewed called Harris the "best thing that ever could have happened to us," claiming that she's "so terrible and they're going to easily do this."

But then, Trump goes out there and "says this," he said, playing a clip of Trump.

ALSO READ: Your tax dollars are funding a $64 billion scam

"The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden, and I'm no Biden fan," said Trump in the clip. "People are saying he lost after the debate, he couldn't win. Well, I don't know if that's true necessarily. Whether he could or couldn't win, he had the right to run."

"They call Trump the great advocate of Joe Biden's political rights," laughed Melber. "You see in that a clear emotion that he'd rather have Biden back."

"I mean, he just couldn't put the two sentences together," said Schwartz. "He loses his train of thought. He doesn't remember things. You can't say a person has dementia unless you are a clinician, you know, looking in a way that I can't, but he sure seems to have lost a step or two. And of all the people I've watched deal with him over the years, Kamala has put him on his back feet more so, starting in the debate, but continuously, he literally cannot get his footing. And I don't think he will."

Watch the video below or at the link here.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com