Entering the final stretch of the presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris is focusing on a simple message that she believes will resonate with undecided swing state voters: Former President Trump is mentally unfit to be president. .
Part of her argument is that the 78-year-old Trump has lost his mental acuity due to his advanced age, a major line of attack that prompted President Joe Biden to drop out of the race. But Trump’s mental deterioration, as evidenced by a series of bizarre incidents and aimless campaign speeches, will also make his return to the White House more dangerous than ever.
Trump responded to the attacks in kind, calling Harris mentally unsound and doubling down on her assertion that she was not smart — a criticism that her supporters derided as sexist and racist but that many of his supporters also said Agree. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement on Friday that Trump “has more energy and stamina than anyone in politics and is the smartest leader this country has ever had.”
In comments to reporters on Wednesday, Harris noted that Trump’s mental health has been questioned not only by her but by many Americans, including many of Trump’s former supporters, appointees and military leaders.
哈里斯說：“根據我的觀察以及許多人的觀察，唐納德·特朗普越來越不穩定。” “正如與他密切共事的人所說，即使在他擔任總統期間，他也不適合擔任美國President.”
On Thursday, the Harris campaign released a new ad in various battleground states, claiming that if re-elected, Trump will be “more unhinged, unstable and unchecked” than ever before and will “ignore all limitations on presidential power.” “Checks and Balances” to implement the conservative “2025 Plan” script.
The ad, based in part on internal campaign data, makes a valid argument that Harris is a stable alternative to the erratic Trump — including in undecided swing states her campaign is desperately trying to reach. voter.
Public polls show Trump is indeed losing ground in voters’ views of his mental health, with the share of Americans who think he is mentally sharp declining and the share of Americans saying he is too old for the job increasing.
The heightened focus on Trump’s mental acuity flipped the script on Biden’s campaign. Biden, 81, is the oldest sitting president in the United States, and concerns about Harris’ age and acuity heightened after a disastrous debate with Trump in June in which he ceded the Democratic vote to Zhou. Harris, who will turn 60 today.
Now, if Trump wins and serves out his full term, he will become the oldest sitting president.
Trump has mixed words, names, places and timelines in his remarks at campaign events and in interviews, often going off on bizarre tangents in increasingly long campaign speeches.
Trump’s rally took a particularly strange turn on Monday when several members of the crowd suffered medical emergencies and Trump decided to cut off questions and simply dance to music on stage for half an hour. Video of him swaying awkwardly in front of an uneasy crowd went viral.
The Harris campaign posted a video compilation of the event on Twitter, writing: “As multiple songs played for more than 30 minutes and crowds poured out of the venue early, Trump appeared lost, confused and frozen on stage. Harris’ own tweet – in which she simply wrote: “Hope he’s okay” – has since been retweeted more than 250,000 times.
Last week, more than 230 doctors, nurses and health care professionals, many of whom supported Harris over Trump, published an open letter calling on Trump to release his medical records — just as Harris has done. Trump also promised but failed to deliver.
Medical professionals wrote that without those records, they could only judge Trump’s mental acuity based on his public appearances and that “in this regard, Trump fell far short of any standard of fitness for public office and demonstrated The surprising characteristic of decreased acuity.”
Among other things, they note, Trump has a tendency to “raving, aimlessly, and rudely lashing out at his many perceived grievances.”
Concerns among the medical community about Trump’s mental health are not new. Last month, a coalition of mental health experts and doctors met at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to discuss Trump and the unique threat they believe he poses to the country and the world.
The organization published a best-selling book in 2017 called “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess the President.” Now they’re back with a new book called “The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 40 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Warn Again.”
Dr. Bandy Lee, a forensic and social psychiatrist and editor of the project, said Trump showed signs of underlying mental illness and deterioration and should agree to an independent psychological evaluation, just as military commanders must do.
Lee said it was concerning that Trump canceled interviews with unfriendly media and avoided occasions where his mental deterioration was evident, such as another debate against Harris.
“We saw a lot of signs – strange behavior – people doing all kinds of things to compensate for his deficiencies,” Lee said.
Trump canceled some events but did not hide them from the public.
Speaking at the annual Catholic Charities Dinner in New York on Thursday night, Trump joked about facing criminal subpoenas in the state and called Harris’ decision to sit out of a event traditionally marked by slights between the candidates. The event, which featured a debate, was “extremely disrespectful”.
Trump also mocked Harris for her laughter, repeatedly mispronounced her name and said he would like her better once people “get rid of her.”
In response, the Harris campaign remains committed to its message. Rapid Response Director Amal Moussa said in a statement that Trump “had difficulty reading scripted notes written by his superiors,” “slurred his words, and when the crowd didn’t laugh with him, he Just lashed out” and “said a long, convoluted thing.” “Talk off script” — “reminding Americans how unstable he has become.
Trump released less detailed but enthusiastic assessments of his health from former White House physician and current Texas congressman Rep. Ronny Jackson, but they were met with deep skepticism and calls for more independent analysis .
Trump’s spokesman, Zhang, said in a statement to The Times that Trump “holds multiple public events every day, and the public can see that he is sharper and more focused than ever as America’s future is at stake. .
He said voters could compare it to “Kamala Harris’ stupidity and incompetence, which is an embarrassment to the rest of the world.”
During Thursday’s event, Trump made a joke that also directed criticism toward Harris.
“Right now we have a man in the White House who can barely speak, can barely speak two coherent sentences, and he seems to have the intelligence of a child. It’s sad. This is a man who has accomplished nothing and has no intelligence whatsoever,” Trump said. “Enough about Kamala Harris.”
Trump also offered an alternative explanation for his verbal digression — one he called “weaving” and a sign of “genius.”
“You know, I do a thing called ‘knitting,'” Trump said on the popular “Flagrant” podcast earlier this month. “Some people will fairly say, ‘This guy is a genius.'” And then other people will say, “Oh, he’s talking nonsense.” I don’t talk nonsense.
Trump said he has an “extraordinary memory” that allows him to veer into a variety of different topics during a conversation or speech and then return to his original point.
“I can go this far here or there, or I can go back to where I started,” Trump said, making the podcast’s comedian co-hosts Andrew Schultz and Aakash Singh laugh.
