Pierce: Trumps New York Times Interview Is a Portrait of a Man in Cognitive Decline
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14516912/donald-trump-new-york-times-michael-schmidt/Trump’s New York Times Interview Is a Portrait of a Man in Cognitive Decline
I don’t care whether Michael Schmidt was tough enough. We’ve got bigger problems.
By Charles P. Pierce
Dec 29, 2017
snip//
Over the past 30 years, I’ve seen my father and all of his siblings slide into the shadows and fog of Alzheimer’s Disease. (the president's father developed Alzheimer's in his 80s.) In 1984, Ronald Reagan debated Walter Mondale in Louisville and plainly had no idea where he was. (Would that someone on the panel had asked him. He’d have been stumped.) Not long afterwards, I was interviewing a prominent Alzheimer’s researcher for a book I was doing, and he said, “I saw the look on his face that I see every day in my clinic.” In the transcript of this interview, I hear in the president*’s words my late aunt’s story about how we all walked home from church in the snow one Christmas morning, an event I don’t recall, but that she remembered so vividly that she told the story every time I saw her for the last three years of her life.
In this interview, the president* is only intermittently coherent. He talks in semi-sentences and is always groping for something that sounds familiar, even if it makes no sense whatsoever and even if it blatantly contradicts something he said two minutes earlier.To my ears, anyway, this is more than the president*’s well-known allergy to the truth. This is a classic coping mechanism employed when language skills are coming apart. (My father used to give a thumbs up when someone asked him a question. That was one of the strategies he used to make sense of a world that was becoming quite foreign to him.) My guess? That’s part of the reason why it’s always “the failing New York Times,” and his 2016 opponent is “Crooked Hillary."
In addition, the president* exhibits the kind of stubbornness you see in patients when you try to relieve them of their car keys–or, as one social worker in rural North Carolina told me, their shotguns. For example, a discussion on health-care goes completely off the rails when the president* suddenly recalls that there is a widely held opinion that he knows very little about the issues confronting the nation. So we get this.
This is more than simple grandiosity. This is someone fighting something happening to him that he is losing the capacity to understand. So is this.
In Ronald Reagan’s second term, we ducked a bullet. I’ve always suspected he was propped up by a lot of people who a) didn’t trust vice-president George H.W. Bush, b) found it convenient to have a forgetful president when the subpoenas began to fly, and c) found it helpful to have a “detached” president when they started running their own agendas – like, say, selling missiles to mullahs. You’re seeing much the same thing with the congressional Republicans. They’re operating an ongoing smash-and-grab on all the policy wishes they’ve fondly cultivated since 1981. Having a president* who may not be all there and, as such, is susceptible to flattery because it reassures him that he actually is makes the heist that much easier.
So, no, I don’t particularly care whether Michael Schmidt was tough enough, or asked enough follow-up questions. I care about this.
We’ve got bigger problems.
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the idiot trump.. he should not be given a free pass. That's one reason we're in this tragic mess now.. the f***ing media Normalizing the pervert.
mcar
would lose a lot of $$$ with this tax bill. Yet just the other day, you greeted your paying members here and told them they'd make a fortune off it.
Can you explain the discrepancy?
Cha.
Same with Nixon. He had a solid 25-30% of supporters to the bitter end.
IIRC, his resignation was the Genesis of the RW movement WRT media, communication, etc. They have been playing a long game.
Eliot.
questions. How is that mean to the Liar in Tweet?
mcar
my father became so frustrated and confused... he chose to just quit eating and soon after drinking... it didn't take long and he died a couple of days before Glen Campbell did... my father was still pretty healthy physically and I realized that he saved himself (and all of us) years of heartbreak...
as Charlie Pierce is, I cannot say I feel any better after reading this! 
....also had to deal with and know many people who have had similar circumstances as well with their parents in the later stages of life and when dementia or Alzheimers taking over. Especially hard was when my father started getting angry and I knew then the guns had to go. My brother took them out of the house "for safe keeping" as he told Dad.
But that brings us to Trump....there is no question in the mind of any of those that know the signs and have lived through it. There is no question to the professionals and psychiatrists who "have a duty to warn" and have been warning the signals. There is no question that the "real reason" Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and many other of his "handlers" and "enablers" had to move to Washington DC and even have offices in the White House....they all know, even if they don't want to admit it.
Donald Trump had to run for President. Its part of the game that they all have to keep going to keep the family business afloat. Between the monies he has had to beg, borrow, steal from various people in his lifetime, to the "Reality TV Show called Trump", to Pizza Hut Commercials etc. its because he is heavily in debt and needs the cash to be flowing in. And the kids and Son-in-Law are all in on this private family enterprise and that is why they all participate to keep the machine running and the facade up. The members of Congress and his cabinet who enabled him during the campaign and since all know and are going with it to help meet their agenda and their profiteering to keep up the profits and the money flowing as well.
The problem is that this isn't a TV Show or a Game. It is reality. And this man is sick and not well. And our country and the White House and our government is not some production of the ultimate Reality TV Show where each week some drama can happen and we all see who is fired and we stay tuned for which member of the cast is fired or sent home in disgrace or Omarosa is going to threaten a tell-all and we sit in anticipation of seeing what is next.
And Trump is "driving" the country down a one-way road in the wrong direction and he has the "ultimate guns" in his hands....
We better hope he isn't entering the "anger" phase and we better all pray/hope that there is someone who can stop him driving and take those guns away....for the safety of all of us and the World....
They’re operating an ongoing smash-and-grab on all the policy wishes they’ve fondly cultivated since 1981. Having a president* who may not be all there and, as such, is susceptible to flattery because it reassures him that he actually is makes the heist that much easier.'
Other than being in a persistent vegetative state, that is? 
It's very likely - considering his life-long unhealthy habits - that he takes a number of meds for heart disease. Friends of mine his age take them and they produce highly sedative effects along with mental laziness. However, he is old enough to be experiencing a normal degree of mental degradation (forgetfulness, occasional confusion, etc.) as well.
We also have to remember this is a man totally out of his environment and he has very little knowledge of the workings of government. However, a narcissist can never admit to any shortcomings. He's also not accustomed to the levels of stress this job entails and he could be on meds for that, too.
Unfortunately, we probably will never know the truth about his physical condition unless he completely fails in some way (heart attack, stroke, etc.). I would bet that any physical exam he has will be kept completely under wraps like his tax returns.
