'Lack of focus': Expert warns Trump shows major signs of mental deterioration

A speech expert warns President Donald Trump's latest interactions with the public show serious indications of cognitive decline, The Daily Beast reported.

This comes at a moment when the spotlight is on how former President Joe Biden struggled in his final year of office, with a new book by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson detailing the lengths to which his inner circle tried to keep him out of the public spotlight. Some Democratic strategists and insiders dispute certain details in the book.

Trump, who will be older than Biden in his final year of office at the end of this term, has similarly faced mounting concern over his mental faculties.

“His lack of focus makes it seem as though he’s experiencing cognitive decline, that his brain is not well-disciplined, and he’s unable to maintain a thought and carry it through to a logical conclusion,” Dr. Jennifer Mercieca told The Daily Beast. A professor at Texas A&M University and the author of "Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump," Mercieca said the president's rhetorical style makes his decline easy to discern.

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“Trump sees himself as someone who is unscripted and not teleprompted. He likes to brand himself as a ‘truthteller’ who can and will say anything that comes to mind," she said. “Unfortunately, that makes his speeches difficult to follow as he digresses from thought to thought — seemingly connecting ideas at random.”

The president's latest stunt that raised eyebrows was a meandering rant to graduating cadets at West Point over the weekend, whom he regaled with his thoughts on golf and "trophy wives."

Trump and his medical team have denied he has any mental impairment, with Trump frequently boasting that he "aced" the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, although experts have noted passage of that test does not rule out cognitive decline.