President Donald Trump struggled “significantly” to articulate several words during his recent rally in Alabama, something clinical and forensic psychologist John Paul Garrison suspected to be due to a potential brain lesion, or brain tissue that appears damaged or abnormal.
Speaking at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Trump displayed early "struggles" to articulate himself, which Garrison flagged as the latest sign of the president's "apparent neurological decline."
“President Trump seems to be experiencing significant issues with language production,” Garrison said in a video published Monday. “Now, he's done this before. We've seen a number of times: he slurs words, he mixes words up, he cannot articulate himself. Specifically, right here, we're hearing issues with articulation.”
As seen in Garrison’s video analysis, Trump thanks attendees during his opening remarks, but can be heard mispronouncing multiple words: “Wow, thank yo, thank you very much, and I want to say a very special hello to a place culled Mobile.”
“Right there — he was trying to say 'a place called Mobile,' and it came out, 'a place culled Mobile,' and that would have to do with the motor functioning of his face,” Garrison said.
“He's having a hard time controlling his mouth, maybe a hard time controlling his lips and his jaw, and that's going to, at times, make words sound strange because these issues seem to be intermittent — in other words, they don't happen constantly, they only happen at times.”
Moments later, Trump appeared to garble another sentence, also while exhibiting a potential “spasm,” Garrison argued.
“He was trying to say, 'why aren't you,' and it came out as a mess. So, as his arm spasmed at almost the same time, he struggled to produce language the way he intended, so we're seeing a dysarthria here,” Garrison said.
“And the reason this matters is that, if there is damage to the brain, for example, if someone has a stroke or something similar, it can cause a lesion in the brain; there could be damage and impairment in the pathways that deal with both the limbs and the mouth.”
Trump, 80, has faced growing scrutiny regarding his physical and mental health.
During his second term, he’s been observed with apparent facial drooping, severe bruising, and swollen ankles. Bruce Davidson, a prominent clinical professor of medicine at Washington State University, said earlier this year that he believed Trump had suffered a stroke.