Inside Trump’s Shark-Infested Brain

Amid Biden uncertainty, don't lose track of fact that Trump nearing cognitive cliff

On June 9, Donald Trump held a rally in Las Vegas, claiming a crowd of 20,000 in a venue that holds 3,000, and wondering whether it would be better to be electrocuted on a sinking electric boat or jump away from the boat into the jaws of a shark. On June 10, Jeff Teidrich asked in his column, You Are All Entitled to My Own Opinion, the very reasonable question, “What is he gibbering about?”

I’m finally getting around to answering that question.

Tiedrich also calls Trump’s rambling, “word salad,” so let’s start there. What “word salad” means from a clinical perspective is elusive nonsensical ideas that the host of said ideas thinks is perfectly logical and coherent – not realizing that what is coming out makes no sense. The words that are being strung together do not belong together. That is word salad. Word salad happens at some point in most Trump rallies, especially when he goes off script and improvises. He doesn’t seem to realize that his improvisation is completely discordant.

However, I don’t necessarily see word salad at play in Trump’s shark-vs-electrocution rant (though we see it elsewhere in the speech). In this case, the words are, in fact, strung together to create ideas. It’s the ideas themselves that are unhinged.

Let’s break it down.

As with most of Trump’s strange, narcissistic and often dark digressions, he starts on script, in this case talking about why electric vehicles are inferior to gas vehicles. He tells the story of visiting a boat maker in South Carolina and delivers a few scripted talking points about the limited range and slow speed of an electric powered boat.

At 43:04, he says, “The problem is the boat is so heavy it can't float.”

And that’s where we go sideways. Now Trump is picturing himself, the hero of his own story, on a sinking ship. But before he goes down with the ship, he can’t help but interject a brilliant question he came up with: “Nobody ever asked this question and it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT. Very smart.”

Trump’s very smart question is whether people would be electrocuted when an electric-powered boat sinks.

First, the relationship with MIT that Trump alludes to is through his uncle, John Trump, whom Trump falsely claimed was the “longest serving professor at MIT.” John Trump was not the longest serving professor at MIT, and Donald Trump’s false memory of this non-fact is an example of confabulation – he makes up a memory without even realizing it is made up. This is a classic symptom of cognitive decline.

Also, the answer to Trump’s question is no. You would not be electrocuted if your electric boat sank. But, honestly, it’s not a completely illogical question. There’s a battery. You’re in the water. You get the point.

It’s not completely unhinged…until the shark.

At 43:53, Trump says, “You have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery is now underwater and there's a shark that's approximately 10 yards over there -- by the way, a lot of shark attacks lately. Do you notice that a lot of shark –”

Now we are deep into what Tiedrich calls gibberish and Trump can’t help but ride the shark train: “I watched some guys justifying it today: ‘Well they weren't really that angry. They bit off the young lady's leg because of the fact that they were -- they were not hungry but they misunderstood what -- who she was. These people are great. He said, ‘There's no problem with sharks they just didn't really understand a young woman swimming.’ Now really got decimated and other people too. A lot of shark attacks.”

Gibberish aside, where does the shark come from?

The shark comes from a loose association along with the impulsivity to insert it into a campaign speech. I call this the “look, a fly!” phenomenon. For Trump, his whole way of being in the world is “look, a fly!” – ideas, images, desires, fears and associations spring into his mind like a fly and he can’t help but manifest the fly for the audience that he imagines is hanging on his every word (despite reports that most of the audience in Nevada left while he was still speaking).

These are classic signs of dementia. In dementia, the ability to sustain attention diminishes and the ability to control impulse diminishes as well.

Trump pictures himself on a sinking electric boat. Just before the Nevada rally, there were news reports of a teenager who lost her leg in a shark attack in Florida. He puts the two together and now at 44:24 we have a real dilemma: “If the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery. The boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?”

Remember, his whole point in this section of the speech is to decry the dangers of electric-powered boats. So he chooses the shark, right? Nope.

Trump: “You know what I do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted? I'll take electrocution every single time.”

He’s finished his story. He goes back to the teleprompter: “So we're going to end [electric vehicles]. We're going to end it for boats. We're going to end it for trucks. The trucks own a tank of diesel fuel. A truck goes from New York -- a big beautiful Peterbilt or any one of these great companies – they go from New York to Los Angeles without a stop.”

And he’s unable to recognize that this lapse, this story, has nothing to do with what he was saying before or what comes after. He sees his improvisation as his own sort of symphony and now he’s taking a bow for giving this great example that everyone can be in awe of. His brain has become completely foggy and overstimulated by his own grandiosity plus impulsivity, which compels him to have introduced sharks into the scenario in the first place.

Trump’s mind is like a Roomba bouncing off the walls of every impulsive image or association that pops into his head. First the MIT confabulation for the purpose of narcissistic grandiosity. Then the loose association of being on a sinking boat with news of shark attacks. Then the impulsivity to let this unhinged gibberish out of his brain – while coming to the conclusion that electric boats aren’t that bad when compared with a shark, which is antithetical to the point he was supposed to be making.

“If your own grandfather start babbling like this about sharks and batteries, you’d be Googling for a good assisted living facility — one with a world-class memory care center,” writes Tiedrich. From a clinical perspective, I couldn’t agree more.

If for some reason you want to spend a few minutes of your life in Trump’s brain, you can watch this sharks-with-laser-beams rant HERE or read the YouTube transcript below:

42:38

he said it's a problem sir they want us to make all electric boats these are boats that are from 16 to 35 or so feet

42:45

fishing boats Leisure boats beautiful company in South Carolina beautiful guy's been doing it for 50 years he

42:51

sells hundreds of boats every couple of months I mean really fantastic guy and they use the Mercury engine and

42:58

different engines in the back no problem they want to take that out they want to make it all electric he said the problem

43:04

is the boat is so heavy it can't float I said that sounds like a problem he said

43:10

also it can't go fast because of the weight and they want to now have a 50 mile or a 70 mile radius you have to go

43:16

out 70 Mi before you can really start the boat up and you go out at two knots that's essentially almost like 2 m an

43:22

hour I say how long does it take you to get out there many hours and then you're

43:27

allowed to go around for 10 minutes but you have to come back because the batteries only last for a very short period of time so I said let me ask you

43:34

a question and he said nobody ever asked this question and it must be because of MIT my relationship to MIT very smart he

43:42

goes I say what would happen if the boat sank from its weight and you're in the

43:47

boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery is now

43:53

underwater and there's a shark that's approximately 10 yards over there by the

43:58

way a lot of shark attacks lately do you notice that a lot of shark I watched some guys justifying it today well they

44:04

weren't really that angry they bit off the young lady's leg because of the fact that they were they were not hungry but

44:11

they misunderstood what who she was these people are great he said there's no problem with sharks they just didn't

44:17

really understand a young woman swimming now really got decimated and other people to a lot of shark atts so I said

44:23

so there's a shark 10 yards away from the boat 10 yards or here do I get electrocuted if

44:31

the boat is sinking water goes over the battery the boat is sinking do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted or

44:38

do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted because I will tell you he didn't know the answer he said you know

44:43

nobody's ever asked me that question I said I think it's a good question I think there's a lot of electric current

44:48

coming through that water but you know what I do if there was a Shar or you get electrocuted I'll take electrocution

44:55

every single time I'm not getting near the shore so we're going to end that we're going to end it for boats we're

45:00

going to end it for trucks the trucks own a tank of diesel fuel a truck goes

45:05

from New York a big beautiful Peterbilt or any one of these great companies they

45:11

go from New York to Los Angeles without a stop with electric much of the truck

45:17

is used the capacity for Batteries the batteries are very heavy and very big very very big many times the size of a

45:24

tank that carries lots of gallons of diesel you have to stop six times and…