Psychiatrist Points Out Major Red Flag Showing Trump’s Mental Problems

According to a prominent psychologist, Donald Trump set off major alarms with a peculiar “tic” during the debate that he says is usually a strong indicator of cognitive decline. The psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Friedman, says that Trump’s use of repetition – along with his frequent stumbles when pronouncing words – are indicative of someone that could be suffering from short term memory problems, which usually forces them to repeatedly rely on what is familiar to them, regardless of what is going on around them. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what this means.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Not only was Donald Trump's debate performance on Tuesday evening, bad for his campaign, but according to an actual psychiatrist, it may have been exceptionally bad for his mental health because he put his symptoms on display for everyone in this country to see. But this psychiatrist, who by the way, it is, uh, professor Richard Friedman, director of the Psycho Pharmac, uh, pharmacology Clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College, he said that it's not just that Trump showed these symptoms. He believes that Donald Trump needs to go and get a neurological exam as quickly as possible because of the symptoms that he recognized. And again, he's a professor, he is obviously a doctor. He is a director of the entire psychopharmacology unit at college. He knows what he is talking about. This is what he has spent his career doing. And here is what he recognized as those red flags.

Trump's expressions of those tendencies were alarming. He displayed some striking, if familiar patterns that are commonly seen among people in cognitive decline. Uh, he was, of course, referring to Trump's repetitive speech patterns, uh, which the psychiatrist argued did not represent a political tactic, but a worrying compulsion. Friedman quoted at Linked Trump's response to a question as to whether he held any lingering regrets after the Capitol riots on January 6th, which of course Trump said this, I have said blood bash, uh, bath. It was a different term, and it was a term that related to energy because they have destroyed our energy business. That was where blood bath was also on Charlottesville. That story has been, as you would say, debunked Laura Ingram, Sean Hannity, Jesse, all of these people, they covered it. If they go an extra sentence, they will see it was perfect. Friedman explained that such circumstantial and Tangental speech can reflect the inability to engage in logical thinking and argued Trump is losing control of his own ticks.

Another such tick. His repetition or perseverance can be a sign of serious short-term memory loss. According to Friedman, people tend to stick to familiar topics over and over when they experience an impairment in cognitive functioning. For instance, in short-term memory, given the complexity of the job of being president, short-term memory is a vital skill. And then he goes in with the hardest part. If a patient presented to me with the verbal incoherence, tangent, genital thinking, and repetitive speech that Trump now regularly demonstrates, I would almost certainly refer them for a rigorous neuropsychiatric evaluation to rule out a cognitive illness. A condition such as vascular dementia or Alzheimer's disease would

Not not be out of the ordinary for a 78-year-old. For those who do have such diseases or conditions, several treatments and services exist to help them, and their loved ones cope with their decline. But that does not mean any of them would be qualified to serve as commander in chief. Again, a mental health professional who knows what they are talking about. He didn't say cognitive decline. He said what I've been saying, and I'm not a trained professional, but he said cognitive illness, a disease, vascular dementia, perhaps Alzheimer's. This is a man who is trained to recognize the symptoms and diagnose them. And while he made abundantly clear in his piece here that he wrote that he was not diagnosing Donald Trump and that he has not examined Donald Trump, of course, but he said, if somebody came into my office and this is what they were, if they were Donald Trump, we're going in for a neuropsychiatric evaluation because I believe this person has a serious illness. And then we move on to the treatment of the illness.