Donald Trump Hush Money Trial Comments Suggest Dementia

Why did Trump focus on a minor detail of his inflated assets case when speaking to reporters about the porn star hush money trial?

Earlier today Trump spoke to reporters outside the courtroom prior to opening statements for the hush money trial involving alleged failure to report $130k payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the lead up to the 2016 election. Interestingly, as you can read in the transcript (below), Trump does not once refer to this trial. Instead, he starts by attacking his “attackers” and then focuses his comments on addressing a relatively minor detail from a different trial – namely, the legitimacy of a bonding company in California holding $175M payment levied against Trump due to illegally inflating his assets to receive favorable loan terms. These two cases are almost wholly unrelated – the Stormy Daniels hush money trial has nothing to do with the inflated assets case.

So why did Trump just spend three minutes addressing the inflated assets case before opening statements of the hush money trial? The answer is cognitive decline.

Specifically, the answer is cognitive rigidity, which is a common symptom of dementia.

Let’s take a closer look. Trump starts in a familiar place, attacking the perceived persecutors by calling the trial a politically motivated witch hunt. In fact, many of his unscripted remarks start this way and as such this go-to opening is itself a sign of cognitive rigidity. Also common to Trump’s unscripted remarks, once he has finished with his “attacking the attackers” opening, he pivots to comment on the issue at hand.

Only, this time he swings and misses.

Instead of pivoting to the hush money trial, he launches into a diatribe about the inflated assets case. It is as if he cannot hold these two ideas in his head simultaneously, or as if he can’t access his thoughts and opinions about the hush money case when they are overshadowed in his brain by the latest developments in the inflated assets case. This morning, despite its irrelevance to the hush money trial, the idea of being seen as not having enough money to pay the $175M assessment in the inflated assets trial was the loudest message in Trump’s head – and so that became the focus of his remarks. (It's also possible he was unaware which trial he was entering.)

The topic of this fixation is also telling. In dementia, short term memory goes first. For Trump, the porn star hush money payment was a relatively recent occurrence, but the language of finance and the instinct to demonstrate power through wealth are part of his long-term memory. These are “languages” he has spoken his entire life.

He starts with the basic urge to defend himself and attack others, portraying himself as both victor and the victim. Then he regresses into an area of cognitive comfort, namely the power that comes with money. What comes out is a total inability to expand beyond his own obsessive thinking. And that obsessive, rigid thinking is another sign of dementia.

Full transcript of Donald Trump’s remarks prior to hush money trial opening remarks:

I just want to say before we begin, these are all Biden trials. This is done as election interference. Everybody knows it. I'm here instead of being able to be in Pennsylvania and Georgia and lots of other places campaigning and it's very unfair. Fortunately, the poll numbers are very good they've been going up because people understand what's going on. This is a Witch Hunt and it's a shame and it comes out of Washington and it's in coordination with Washington – everything including the DA's office -- it's in coordination with Washington. I just want people to understand that this is done for purposes of hurting the opponent of the worst president in the history of our country.

Second of all, we have another trial going on right now that's Leticia James. She campaigned on the fact that I will get Trump I'm going to get Trump and it has to do with a bond of $175 million. First of all she doesn't want me to par participate with financial companies in New York so we have a company I guess based in California. It's a bonding company and I put up 175 million in cash but she says the bonding company is not good. She doesn't like the bonding company because she doesn't know if the collateral is good and I put up 175 million in cash and she's questioning the bonding company. Well when you put up cash and the number is 175 which is what we're supposed to be putting up but I give it in cash she shouldn't be complaining about the bonding company. The bonding company would be good for it because I put up the money and I have plenty of money to put up.

But nobody is going to be putting up with this. Nobody's going to be listening or coming to New York anymore businesses are going to be leaving because people are treated so badly. It's got to be the most unfriendly place to do business and that's why businesses are leaving and people are leaving -- as migrants come in and take over our parks and our schools and anything else.

So, on the Leticia James case she's the worst attorney general in the country. By the way on Leticia and she keeps a lot of business out of New York and businesses that are

here are leaving and that means jobs and a lot of revenue. Somebody's going to step in. The governor, somebody has to step in and do something because your businesses are fleeing.

But on Leticia James, the money was put up. It's 175 million and I don't think she's complaining about me for the first time ever. She's complaining about the company but why would you be doing that when I put up the money? So I just want you to know that that's taking place in front of an extremely crazed judge who's the most overturned judge in New York State. She was overturned four or five times on that case alone that's, uh, you know who it is. I don't have to mention names. I want to be nice. I want to be very nice. But uh I think like that and I think like what's going on right here should never be happening it's a very, very sad day in America. I can tell you that. Thank you very much.