Trump’s ‘slurred speech and gross, repeated errors’ show his cognitive decline is ‘MORE apparent’ than Biden, UBC professor claims, in frightening assessment of presidential front runners
Donald Trump’s cognitive decline is “more apparent” than Joe Biden’s, with “slurring of speech and gross, repeated errors” but both are worrying, a professor has warned.
University of British Columbia politics professor Paul Quirk assessed the cognitive functioning of both presidential front-runners after a series of blunders raised questions about their fitness to hold office.
He told Newsweek that the 77-year-old Trump’s cognitive decline is more apparent, but that Biden’s “cognitive failure” could lead to him refusing to relinquish control when necessary during his second term.
Both candidates have come under fire in recent weeks for mental mistakes — Trump confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi, while a damning report described the 81-year-old Biden as an “older man with limited memory.”
Quirk said, “From the campaign’s standpoint, Biden’s age should be less of an issue than Trump’s more apparent cognitive decline — manifested in slurred speech and gross, repetitive errors in one campaign rally after another.”
Professor Quirk warned that Biden might fail to recognize his own decline and as a result might refuse to resign
According to Professor Quirk, Trump’s decline is ‘clearer’ and a bigger problem for his campaign
While Trump’s decline is more apparent, Quirk said, Biden’s is just as concerning: “The legitimate concern about Biden’s age is that at the end of a second term he would be almost five years older than he is now.”
‘There is a clear potential for serious cognitive failure by then.
“And if it were to happen, the real danger is that Biden would not recognize it and refuse to let his vice president take power.”
Quirk’s assessment follows a series of errors that call into question the mental fitness of both Trump and Biden.
While the report did not recommend filing charges against the 81-year-old, it delivered a flurry of damaging findings about files found in Biden’s garage, as well as the president’s fitness for office.
In interviews with researchers, the report said Biden became confused about the dates he was vice president and could not remember the year his son Beau died.
The report said: ‘He didn’t remember when he was vice president, forgot on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 – when did I stop being vice president?’), and on the second day forgot the day of the interview when his term began (‘Am I still vice president in 2009?’).”
Professor Quirk assessed the cognitive functioning of both presidential front-runners
One of the reasons they decided not to press charges was because “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury at trial, as he did during our interview with him, as a likable, well-meaning, older man with a poor memory . ‘.
Earlier this month, Biden’s staff struggled to explain why the president repeatedly referred to dead European leaders as if they were still in power.
He made another blunder when he called French President Emmanuel Macron François Mitterrand, the country’s former leader. Mitterrand died 28 years ago.
Biden then swapped the late German leader Helmut Kohl with former Chancellor Angela Merkel.
And in November, he bragged that he had a “code to blow up the world” while talking about nuclear weapons during a visit to the world’s largest windmill factory in Colorado.
During the same visit, Biden referred to Trump as a “Congressman Trump.”
Meanwhile, at a rally in Concord, New Hampshire ahead of the state’s key primaries, Trump repeatedly incorrectly referred to Nikki Haley as responsible for security during the riot at the U.S. Capitol — instead of Nancy Pelosi.
He said, “By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6. You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know, they – you know they destroyed all the information, all the evidence, everything? everything removed and destroyed. Everything.’
It also appears that Trump slurred his words during his campaign speeches.
And he appeared to conflate Biden and Obama, repeatedly suggesting that former Democratic President Barack Obama was still in office.
In recent months during his campaign, he has spoken of the “Obama administration” in the present tense and of Obama as the “current president.”
Both Trump and Biden have tried to downplay the blunders and insist they are not a problem.
After the Justice Department report, Biden told the nation, “I know what the hell I’m doing!” and insisted that ‘my memory is good.’
Similarly, Trump told voters in January that he had taken a mental fitness test and “passed it.”
But voters aren’t convinced: A recent NBC poll found that a total of 62 percent of voters had major concerns about Biden’s mental and physical health and 34 percent of voters had major concerns about Trump’s.
Meanwhile, Prof. Quirk believes Democrats want Biden to step aside, but there is no way to force him to do so.
He said: ‘Many or even most leading Democrats might prefer that he step aside.
“But they do not have mechanisms in place to discuss the issue in confidence, reach a collective decision and impose it on Biden, other party members and primary voters.”
But he added that the situation was not yet dire: “At this stage, we have seen no clear evidence that Biden has suffered sufficient cognitive decline to compromise his performance as president.
‘He has been surprisingly effective in policy terms. The Special Counsel’s report, which drew attention to Biden’s ‘memory problems,’ is widely discredited as a partisan assassination.”