A clip of President Donald Trump slipping a pair of gold ceremonial scissors into his suit pocket at a ribbon-cutting is raising alarm bells with at least one medical expert, who said the moment may point to something more serious than a souvenir grab.
The incident occurred Wednesday at the dedication of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota, where Trump cut the red ribbon alongside Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Footage that quickly spread online showed the 80-year-old president examining the blades, holding them up for the crowd, and then sliding them into his jacket.
Hilary Shae, a pathologist whose practice focuses on neurological rehabilitation, pushed back on the kleptomania jokes in a video posted Thursday night.
"It seems like Donald Trump has become a little bit of a kleptomaniac recently," Shae said. "But quite honestly, it actually looks more like a sign of dementia."
Shae connected the scissors moment to fresh reporting in Regime Change, the explosive new tell-all by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. The book described Trump quietly claiming decor items his wife had selected for shared spaces, moving them into his own bedroom or the Oval Office while she was away.
According to the authors, staff once reminded the president that he was taking items from the Center Hall that Melania had personally chosen. He made clear he didn't care and "seemed almost to be competing with her," they wrote.
Shae said that pattern, paired with the scissors clip, fits a recognized clinical picture rather than a psychiatric one.
"The stealing is usually a symptom of changes in the brain affecting memory, judgment, impulse control, or the ability to recognize ownership," she said, pointing to "executive dysfunction" tied to damage in the frontal lobes.
She tied the behavior most closely to behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, a condition she said causes loss of inhibition, impulsivity, and poor judgment. Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia, she added, could produce similar signs depending on accompanying symptoms.
"I do not think that Donald Trump is actually, psychiatrically speaking, suffering from kleptomania," Shae concluded. "I do believe it is just one more sign and symptom of dementia. As always, Donald Trump has got to go."