On October 23, 2025, a prominent psychologist issued a stark warning about the mental health of President Donald Trump, raising concerns that his alleged "immense cognitive decline" and "malignant narcissism" pose a grave risk to the country. Dr. John Gartner, a former Johns Hopkins professor and co-host of the "Shrinking Trump" podcast, made these remarks in widely circulated interviews, including on The Daily Beast Podcast. His observations have reignited debate about the fitness of the nation’s oldest sitting president and the potential consequences of cognitive impairment at the highest level of power.
Dr. Gartner did not mince words in his assessment. "It really would be impossible to overstate the grave risk that all of us are at right now," he said, according to RadarOnline.com. He pointed to what he described as a "massive increase" in clinical signs of dementia in President Trump, a decline that he claims has also inflamed the president’s "malignant narcissism." This combination, Gartner argued, is not just a personal tragedy but a national security concern, especially with the nuclear football so close at hand.
Trump’s public appearances and speeches have become the focus of Gartner’s analysis. According to Alternet, Gartner cited the president's "nonsensical speeches, repeated confusion, and frequent lapses in memory" as clear evidence of "immense cognitive decline." He particularly highlighted a recent address to top U.S. military brass at Quantico as a case study in disordered thinking. During that speech, Trump jumped abruptly from discussing soldiers’ morale to a tangent about President Biden’s autopen, and then veered off into an extended, oddly affectionate monologue about the quality of paper and his own signature. Gartner likened this pattern to the behavior of dementia patients who "pick up on one concrete physical detail and then free-associate away from the original topic."
Gartner’s analysis drew a vivid analogy: "We're seeing a stone skipping along the water. He's going from one association to another, but it doesn't make any linear sense." The psychologist noted that this pattern is not typical of normal aging or simple fatigue. Instead, he argued, it is "something very specific that is linked to dementia and organic, cognitive decline." He also noted that Trump’s focus on trivial details—like the White House ballroom or the paper he writes on—reflects a narrowing of attention, another classic sign of cognitive impairment.
Another disturbing symptom, according to Gartner, is what he calls "phonemic paraphasia." This is a speech phenomenon in which a person substitutes or rearranges sounds within words, so the spoken word still resembles the intended one but is incorrect. Gartner explained, "People don't make those kinds of phonemic paraphasias if they're tired or if they're aging. It's something very specific that is linked to dementia and organic, cognitive decline."
Recent public statements by Trump have provided further fodder for Gartner’s concerns. In the week before Gartner’s warning, Trump claimed he had prevented a nuclear war between Pakistan and Iran—a claim that, on its face, was already dubious. But Trump also repeatedly confused Iran with India, failing to catch the mistake. As RadarOnline.com reported, Gartner noted, "It's one thing to get a name wrong, maybe even to reverse it. But he's actually confusing the countries themselves."
The confusion did not stop there. Trump also boasted that he had stopped fighting between Cambodia and Armenia—two countries that are, as Gartner pointed out, more than 4,000 miles apart and have no known history of conflict. In another instance, Trump claimed to have prevented a showdown between Azerbaijan and Albania, apparently meaning Armenia. These repeated geographic and factual errors, Gartner argued, go beyond ordinary slips of the tongue and point to deeper cognitive dysfunction.
Memory lapses have also become more pronounced, according to Gartner. He cited an incident from the previous month when Trump forgot the name of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) just one day after meeting with him to discuss averting a government shutdown. Gartner described this as "clearly demented memory loss," drawing a comparison to a nursing home patient who fails to recognize close family members. "This is like when you go to visit your mother in the nursing home and you bring your sister and she goes, ‘Who’s that nice lady that you brought with you?’... I mean, it’s that level of non-recognition that we’re talking about," Gartner explained to The Daily Beast.
Beyond the cognitive symptoms, Gartner raised alarms about Trump’s "malignant narcissism," a rare and severe personality disorder marked by paranoia and sadism. He compared this disorder to the traits seen in infamous dictators such as Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein. "The idea that he really just wants to s—— on everyone who disagrees with him, that’s literally how he feels because of the personality disorder," Gartner said. While such comparisons are certain to provoke controversy, Gartner insisted that the combination of cognitive decline and malignant narcissism is particularly dangerous in someone holding the presidency.
Gartner’s prognosis for Trump’s mental health is grim. "This is really someone who could wake up and—in a state of complete confusion and erratic irritation—do something catastrophic," he warned. As the oldest sitting president in American history, Trump’s age is a factor, but Gartner emphasized that the signs he sees go far beyond what is expected in normal aging. "Trump is only going to get worse," he predicted, suggesting that the risks posed by his condition will only increase over time.
The warnings from Dr. Gartner have sparked fierce debate among political observers, medical professionals, and the public. While some see his analysis as a necessary wake-up call, others caution against armchair diagnoses and point to the political motivations that can color such assessments. The White House has not responded directly to Gartner’s claims, and Trump himself has previously dismissed concerns about his mental acuity, famously boasting about his cognitive test results and coining the term "the weave" to describe his meandering speaking style.
As the 2024 presidential campaign heats up, questions about the fitness of candidates—mental, physical, and moral—are likely to become even more central to the national conversation. For now, Dr. John Gartner’s warnings serve as a reminder of the high stakes involved when the health of a leader becomes a matter of public concern, and the potential consequences when those warnings go unheeded.