This Just In!
The NYT has discovered that Trump is old.
Reporting on an item that has been known to the staff at OTB for some time now, the NYT reports: Shorter Days, Signs of Fatigue: Trump Faces Realities of Aging in Office.
The start of the piece is kind of annoying, to be honest, and speaks to the ongoing inability of the NYT to be straightforward on the topic of Trump.
The day before Halloween, President Trump landed at Joint Base Andrews after spending nearly a week in Japan and South Korea. He was then whisked to the White House, where he passed out candy to trick-or-treaters. Allies crowed over the president’s stamina: “This man has been nonstop for DAYS!” one wrote online.
A week later, Mr. Trump appeared to doze off during an event in the Oval Office.
With headline-grabbing posts on social media, combative interactions with reporters and speeches full of partisan red meat, Mr. Trump can project round-the-clock energy, virility and physical stamina. Now at the end of his eighth decade, Mr. Trump and the people around him still talk about him as if he is the Energizer Bunny of presidential politics.
Yeah, allies crowed. Social media posts have attention-grabbing headlines. People around him talk like he is the Energizer Bunny.
But that doesn’t mean the press has to go along with the illusion. Even this piece feels a bit like they are bending over backwards not to just report the reaity of the situation.
The piece then transitions thusly.
The reality is more complicated: Mr. Trump, 79, is the oldest person to be elected to the presidency, and he is aging. To pre-empt any criticism about his age, he often compares himself to President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who at 82 was the oldest person to hold the office, and whose aides took measures to shield his growing frailty from the public, including by tightly managing his appearances.
No, the reality isn’t “more complicated”; the reality is the reality. He is 79 years old and is hardly the fittest 79-year-old one is likely to encounter. And we have all seen him doze off on camera well before the Times decided to do a piece on his age.
Look, regular OTB readers know that I am not a fan of long-distance diagnoses. While there are moments (as I noted here) that I begin to wonder about his mental state, I still, on balance, find accusations of dementia and the like to be largely motivated thinking by opponents (and it has been going on for roughly a decade now, which undercuts the claim).
Still, there is no argument that age is taking its toll, as it does for us all. If you listen to speeches from the first term to this one, his voice doesn’t sound as strong these days, for example. However, I am not so sure his general word salad approach to serious policy issues has changed all that much over time.
More from the article.
He also keeps a shorter public schedule than he used to. Most of his public appearances fall between noon and 5 p.m., on average.
And when he is in public, occasionally, his battery shows signs of wear. During an Oval Office event that began around noon on Nov. 6, Mr. Trump sat behind his desk for about 20 minutes as executives standing around him talked about weight-loss drugs.
At one point, Mr. Trump’s eyelids drooped until his eyes were almost closed, and he appeared to doze on and off for several seconds. At another point, he opened his eyes and looked toward a line of journalists watching him. He stood up only after a guest who was standing near him fainted and collapsed.
And then there is this.
Many of the facts that concerned critics about Mr. Trump’s physical health during his first term are present now. He does not get regular exercise, in part because he has a long-held theory that people are born with a finite amount of energy and that vigorous activity can deplete that reserve, like a battery. He enjoys red meat and is known to eat McDonald’s by the sackful.
No exercise plus “sackful[s]” of McDonald’s plus 79 years of age = poor health.
BTW, I simply do not believe this:
According to his physician, however, he has lost weight. In 2020, Mr. Trump tipped the scales at 244 pounds, a weight formally deemed obese for his 6-foot-3 frame. This year, Mr. Trump’s physician, Dr. Sean P. Barbabella, said in a summary of the president’s health that he weighed 224 pounds.
I am just shy of 6’3″ and weigh just under 220 as of a couple of days ago. While I certainly could lose some weight, I simply do not look like the president. Recognizing that we all carry weight differently, I am just not buying the 224. (Of course, I am not sure I buy that Trump is 6’3″ either.)
According to a Times analysis of the official presidential schedules in a database maintained by Roll Call, Mr. Trump’s first official event starts later in the day. In 2017, the first year of his first term, Mr. Trump’s scheduled events started at 10:31 a.m. on average. By contrast, Mr. Trump in his second term has started scheduled events in the afternoon on average, at 12:08 p.m. His events end on average at around the same time as they did during the first year of his first term, shortly after 5 p.m.
The number of Mr. Trump’s total official appearances has decreased by 39 percent. In 2017, Mr. Trump held 1,688 official events between Jan. 20 and Nov. 25 of that year. For that same time period this year, Mr. Trump has appeared in 1,029 official events.
Mr. Trump still regularly comes down to the Oval Office after 11 a.m., according to a person familiar with his schedule. This routine is a holdover from his first term: After he complained about being overscheduled in the mornings, Mr. Trump kept so-called executive time hours in the White House residence before he headed downstairs for work.
Ah, yes, “executive time” wherein he watches TV and whatnot. Starting your workday at 11 am seems a bit lax for the leader of the free world (although, less time to do damage, I guess, not that he doesn’t do that at all times of the day and night via social media).
Some comparisons:
Mr. Bush was in the Oval Office by 6:45 a.m. every day, Dr. Kuhlman said, and Mr. Obama would arrive by 10 a.m., though his days often went later, until 7 p.m. or so, when he would meet his family for dinner.
In fairness, I am mildly surprised at 10 am for Obama, but I would wager that he wasn’t sitting around watching cable news all morning.
There are also health questions.
“I have no idea what they analyzed,” Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One recently after he was again asked about his M.R.I. “But whatever they analyzed, they analyzed it well, and they said that I had as good a result as they’ve ever seen.”
No one gets an MRI without knowing why they are getting it. This strikes me as straight-up lying.
Mr. Trump also applies makeup to a bruise on the back of his right hand, adding speculation about a medical condition that his physician and aides say is caused by taking aspirin and shaking so many hands. In September, the bruising on his hand, coupled with swollen ankles, caused observers on the internet to speculate wildly about his health.
A family member has taken aspirin for years, and I can attest that they bruise more easily (and bleed more freely) as a result. Their hands, however, don’t look anything like that.
Allow me to leave the post on a humorous note.
“Unlike the Biden White House, who covered up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and hid him from the press, President Trump and his entire team have been open and transparent about the president’s health, which remains exceptional,” Ms. Leavitt said in a statement.
Sure, Karoline. Whatever you say.
One doesn’t have to be old to suffer from memory loss, degenerative brain conditions, or cognitive decline. These attributes have appeared in Trump since the 2016 election cycle, at least. There is also a difference between someone who ages and just slows down their cognitive thinking vs. someone who ages and mistakes Nikki Haley for Nancy Pelosi, or speaks jubberish in long rants. I can forgive NYT for an occasional puff piece as long as they keep reporting the real stuff.
I believe he is. With the heel lifts.
As to his belief that we have a fixed amount of energy, so exercise is bad, that he professes to believe something so utterly ridiculous, but self serving, is at least consistent.
I hope that’s now in their style book, as “President Biden, 82” seemed to be.
@ Stephen L. Taylor
Yes, remote “diagnosis” can be a tenuous endeavor (precisely what social media was built for !), but for those who have spent a good bit of time caring for and interacting with family and friends suffering from this form of mental decline, it’s not that much of a stretch. Same thing with mental illnesses.
This is a guy who insists regularly that his Presidency is the best ever, citing things that are polar opposite of any kind of superlative and easily proven false. We, as a nation, have been ignoring the implications of having a President with multiple personality disorders, at our own peril. The “dementia” dimension only compounds this issue.
For crying out loud, the guy forgets what he just said minutes before.
The Alzheimer’s Society reports that signs of dementia can be observed up to 18 years prior to diagnosis.
I don’t really think it undercuts the claim so much as the media seems to expect declines to happen rapidly and at a steady pace, when in reality age-related decline occurs in stops and starts.
El taco may have some form of dementia. I know enough that not all forms are the same. But it may be he’s just dumb, deluded, and lazy.
I don’t much care that Trump is in decline. Making a point of it buries the more important consideration – he may be getting older, but he hasn’t lost a step of his fascism. The guy ain’t mellowing with age.
However, as sweet Karoline’s quote infers above, sadly what tends to be salient in our myopic political journalism falls into the tired “it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up” storylines. So we are subjected to the most dubious of arguments – Biden’s apparent cognitive decline being hidden from us negates his administration’s prowess in passing the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act in his single term. And since Trump transparently displays his exceptional decrepitude to the press on a regular basis, he’s the better leader even as he drives the country over a cliff.
The Karoline Leavitt theory of corruption = it’s not corrupt if it is done out in the open. And thus she excuses the blatant corruption of the administration writ large and the Trump family in specific. Being consistent, she offers Trump’s daily bonkers interaction with the press as proof that he is not delusional or in decline because – “everything is out in the open.” The NYT happily sane washes the gibberish.
AND – as to Trump being 6’3″…in NBA legend Jerry West’s playing days he was listed as 6’2″. During Trump’s first term he gave West the Presidential Medal, and in the side by side photo, the then 82 year old West was easily 2 inches taller than Trump.
Finally –
Virility? That’s defined as, the quality of having strength, energy, and a strong sex drive; manliness. What’s manly about a guy who spends an hour a day putting on makeup and teasing his platinum blonde comb over?
tbh, I’m amazed by Trump’s vigor. He’s 79 years old. His lifestyle (diet, exercise, social intimacy) is less than optimal. His family history is riddled.
And yet, he gets around damn well. Better than many (most?) 79 year olds that I know. I suspect better than some OTB commenters, regardless of age. And his above average size (height/weight) makes that even more noteworthy.
The schedule demands of POTUS are intense, even in the most accommodating circumstances. I’m very fit and many decades younger than Trump. And those demands would kick my ass from time to time (if not more).
All that said, he is not “fit” to be POTUS. Never was.
@Mimai:
“Snorting Adderall” is another way to say “vigor.”
Seriously, I don’t think the way he operates is all that stressful. He makes dumbass comments and his minions do the work. (Refer to US versus Comey)
Then he berates a female reporter.
Rinse, repeat.
And we have absolutely no idea regarding his actual physical condition. He sure looks like my dad did after a stroke.
@Mimai:
Well played
@Daryl:
He endures long stretches of ceremonial boredom, where people blather about things he can’t comprehend and isn’t interested in. Boredom is sleep-inducing.
Remember he kept falling asleep in his criminal trial? Do you think he’s interested in people talking about how awful he truly is? you may as well ask him to watch grass grow.
The thing where he says, “I don’t want to spend my finite energy” strikes me in a particular way.
It’s bullshit, but it ends the discussion. I don’t know that he even expects the listener to believe either what he’s saying, or that he even believes it. But it ends the conversation. And he doesn’t want to exercise, for whatever reason. I feel like I know people that use this strategy, if not this argument.