Debate Debacle: Aging, stutter or cognitive decline?
06/29/24 • 85 min
Co-hosts Drs. John Gartner and Harry Segal discuss the presidential debate with famed psychologist David Dunning, co-author of the “Dunning-Krueger Effect. The nation must deal with the shock, panic, and trauma created by Biden’s poor performance. But what caused it? Age, stuttering, illness, cognitive decline, poor debate preparation and strategy, or some combination? How concerned should we be?
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We started this show to call out the media for failing to recognize Trump’s early signs of dementia and to contrast that with Biden’s normal aging. “It’s what John referred to as, ‘the aging brain versus the dementing brain’,” Dr. Segal said. “And our goal is really to raise clinical awareness and sophistication on the part of you, our viewers, but also of the media.”
Week after week we have offered a series of progressive hypotheses to explain Trump’s behavior, his language, and even his physical bearing. And now, after the debate sent shockwaves through the media and the public, we thought it important to look at what actually happened that night.
“As far as a performance and as far as the political impact, I would say it couldn't have been worse,” Dr. Gartner said. “In terms of understanding what happened, however, I think we are actually going to have a very interesting discussion today because it's actually quite complex.
You’ll hear our hosts share their very relatable personal reactions to the debate and help us all understand the trauma Americans suffered that evening. “I felt like the walls were closing in,” John said. “I felt the floor actually fall beneath me like I was falling into the void.”
“I felt that I had just experienced a trauma - like my whole world had changed,” Dr. Segal said. “This was not normal functioning. This was terrifying and traumatizing.”
We’ll run through some of the clips to analyze how the candidates’ body language made Trump’s answers sound better than they were - and Biden’s WAY worse than they actually were.
While Trump had a more commanding performance, our hosts argue that he had a clever way of hiding his cognitive decline. “Trump is stringing together his slogans - he gums them together,” Harry said. “We've been watching him do this in rallies. But through the forcefulness of his tone and his ability to create rhythm in his speech, it seems to make sense in a cohesive, coherent way. This is a way that Trump is managing his own decline, which is not being expressed through a weakness in his voice, but in other ways.”
We’ll also analyze the physical signs of advanced aging Biden displayed, and discuss what role the debate prep likely played in his delivery. And we weigh the impact of Biden’s traditional stutter on his performance and how that can often be confused with actual signs of aging.
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Co-hosts Drs. John Gartner and Harry Segal discuss the presidential debate with famed psychologist David Dunning, co-author of the “Dunning-Krueger Effect. The nation must deal with the shock, panic, and trauma created by Biden’s poor performance. But what caused it? Age, stuttering, illness, cognitive decline, poor debate preparation and strategy, or some combination? How concerned should we be?
Make sure you join us here on Patreon to support our work and gain access to exclusive perks: patreon.com/ReallyAmericanMedia
Our site: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/shrinking-trump
Subscribe on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/really-political/id1742461616
Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6AEHmPMAqDlLJEbMgXq1iJ
Subscribe on Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/83ca7283-59fb-4cb7-a34b-03c4b0218f29
Subscribe on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-really-political-169545670/
We started this show to call out the media for failing to recognize Trump’s early signs of dementia and to contrast that with Biden’s normal aging. “It’s what John referred to as, ‘the aging brain versus the dementing brain’,” Dr. Segal said. “And our goal is really to raise clinical awareness and sophistication on the part of you, our viewers, but also of the media.”
Week after week we have offered a series of progressive hypotheses to explain Trump’s behavior, his language, and even his physical bearing. And now, after the debate sent shockwaves through the media and the public, we thought it important to look at what actually happened that night.
“As far as a performance and as far as the political impact, I would say it couldn't have been worse,” Dr. Gartner said. “In terms of understanding what happened, however, I think we are actually going to have a very interesting discussion today because it's actually quite complex.
You’ll hear our hosts share their very relatable personal reactions to the debate and help us all understand the trauma Americans suffered that evening. “I felt like the walls were closing in,” John said. “I felt the floor actually fall beneath me like I was falling into the void.”
“I felt that I had just experienced a trauma - like my whole world had changed,” Dr. Segal said. “This was not normal functioning. This was terrifying and traumatizing.”
We’ll run through some of the clips to analyze how the candidates’ body language made Trump’s answers sound better than they were - and Biden’s WAY worse than they actually were.
While Trump had a more commanding performance, our hosts argue that he had a clever way of hiding his cognitive decline. “Trump is stringing together his slogans - he gums them together,” Harry said. “We've been watching him do this in rallies. But through the forcefulness of his tone and his ability to create rhythm in his speech, it seems to make sense in a cohesive, coherent way. This is a way that Trump is managing his own decline, which is not being expressed through a weakness in his voice, but in other ways.”
We’ll also analyze the physical signs of advanced aging Biden displayed, and discuss what role the debate prep likely played in his delivery. And we weigh the impact of Biden’s traditional stutter on his performance and how that can often be confused with actual signs of aging.
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Previous Episode
Trump and Biden ARE NOT the same
Top Psychologists John Gartner and Harry Segal are joined by Professor of Neuropsychology and Neurology at UCFF Dr. Joel Kramer, as they parse significant differences between Biden's chronic stutter and Trump's glaring dementia.
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Dr. Joel Kramer is the director of the neuropsychology program at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. He studies the effects of neurodegenerative disease on intellectual abilities and behavior.
Dr. Kramer was quoted in the Washington Post last week saying that the risk for both Biden and Trump are “about the same for demonstrating some degree of cognitive decline over the next four to five years.” Our host John Gartner brought him on the show to challenge this conclusion.
The Post failed to mention that in their interview Dr. Kramer also said, “Biden has an established history of a developmental language disorder - stuttering, while Trump's gaffes are more likely driven by disordered thinking.”
Welcome to another addition of Shrinking Trump, our weekly show where we review the ways in which Trump’s behavior over the past week demonstrates signs of early onset of dementia, and express his malignant personality disorder.
“And each week,” Dr. Segal says, “we've been trying to help you, our listeners, as well as the media, to think about Trump in a more clinically sophisticated and accurate way.”
We’ll analyze Trump’s wildest episodes from the past week and point out the different variables that likely influence his shifting behaviors and cognitive ability.
From forgetting the name of Joe Biden and the Doctor who administered his cognitive test, to calling Milwaukee a “horrible” city, to suggesting that Nancy Pelosi would want to date him, Trump “really writes his own Saturday Night Live cold open,” as Dr. Gartner puts it.
“Why are we talking about this? Because there's a deterioration in his frontal lobes that are causing him to become disinhibited and lose his executive functioning.”
Clips on social media can be distorted and misleading. At times Trump can be articulate and forceful. But as our hosts show you each week, there is likely enough video evidence to diagnose actual signs of a progressive dementia and cognitive decline.
“As I predicted when we started this show two months ago, he will continue to get worse, Dr. Gartner said. “He will continue to show these symptoms more and more.”
Dr. Kramer answers Dr. Gartner’s challenge, defend his statements, and will walk us through the major differences between Trump and Biden, as both a concerned citizen and as a practicing neuropsychologist.
“You and I are taking a big risk by coming on this show every week and talking, not definitively, but arguing strongly for a diagnosis of Trump,” Dr. Segal said.
“Not just what seems to me to be an onset of cognitive decline, but also his severe personality disorder. But the mainstream press doesn't want to come out and label Trump. And so they're just putting it out there that they're both old. I think it's cowardly. I don't think it helps the public.”
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Next Episode
Post-debate analysis: We all need to take a breath
Hosts Dr. John Gartner and Dr. Harry Segal are joined by geriatrician and dementia expert Dr. Elizabeth Landsverk to analyze Biden’s debate performance and determine what signs of dementia, if any, he actually displayed. Dr. Vince Greenwood is also back on the show to help us evaluate the signs of aging and cognitive decline shown from both candidates.
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Welcome to another edition of Shrinking Trump, where we normally talk about how Donald Trump’s behavior shows signs of dementia, and to point out how the media improperly covers it. Since the debate, however, many Americans, including us, have been left wondering if Biden's performance was simply a bad episode or if it's a sign of a worsening cognitive condition.
Dr. Gartner is optimistic, and based on available data is concluding that Biden is showing normal signs of aging and not suffering from a cognitive condition. Dr. Segal, however, is not so sure.
“What accounts for what happened last Thursday,” Dr. Segal asked. “Was it simply exhaustion? Or was it a cognitive decline that we're now being allowed to see? I think it’s very important for us to ask these questions.”
In this episode, our hosts analyze Biden’s appearance and behavior in the week that followed the poor debate performance, including a rally in North Carolina and a strong speech about the Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling.
We’ll talk about how Biden’s aging should not necessarily be confused with incompetence. “It looked so terrible,” Dr. Gartner said “And it had such a terrible impact that the truth might not even matter. But if we're looking at the truth, we have to understand how someone can show signs of aging but also be competent.”
We’ll highlight some of Trump’s cognitive failures from the week to demonstrate the clear difference from Biden’s normal signs of aging and Trump’s clear decline. “The symptoms we're seeing in Trump are worse and more constant,” John said. “Biden may have not been able to complete his sentence properly, but at no point during the debate did he think Obama was President. He's not making up quotes from Ulysses S. Grant. He's not talking nonsense about sharks and batteries.”
You’ll also get our take on why Biden’s debate performance was such a flop and hear who John thinks is primarily to blame for the whole debacle. Trust us, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.
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