‘He’s Not Well’: Trump’s Bizarre Off-Topic Ramble Raises Alarm Over ‘Mental Capacity’
Donald Trump’s rambling speech at the Detroit Economic Club on Thursday at times veered so far off-topic that critics raised new questions about his focus and mental capacity.
Trump trashed Detroit while speaking in Detroit, attempted to define the word “grocery,” and got defensive about his crowd size as he spoke for three hours.
During one 90-second stretch, he jumped from manufacturing to Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets, to President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign amid COVID restrictions, to election conspiracy theories, and then to how the United States has been “abused” by other countries.
“It’s so simple,” Trump said of his proposals to use the threat of tariffs to increase manufacturing in the United States.
“This isn’t like Elon, with his rocket ships that land within 12 inches on the moon where they want it to land or he gets the engines back,” he said. “That was the first, I really, I said ‘who the hell did that.’ I saw engines about three, four years ago. These things were coming, cylinders, no wings, no nothing, and they’re coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace with a circle. Boom!”
The word “circle” set Trump in a new direction.
“Reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have, right?” Trump said, referring to circles placed on the ground in 2020 to help guests keep socially distant amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic. “He’d have eight circles, and he couldn’t fill ’em up.”
Trump then used that to launch into his grievances about the 2020 election, which he lost, and make references to his debunked conspiracy theories.
“But then I heard he beat us with the popular vote, I don’t know, I don’t know, couldn’t fill up the eight circles,” Trump said, then riffed some more:
“I always loved those circles, they were so beautiful, they were so beautiful to look at. In fact the person that did them, that was the best thing about his, the level of that circle was great, but they couldn’t get people so they used to have the press stand in those circles because they couldn’t get the people. Then I heard we lost. ‘Oh we lost.’ No, we’re never going to let that happen again. But we’ve been abused by other countries we’ve been abused by our own politicians really, more than other countries.”
When he was still running against Biden, Trump accused his rival of cognitive problems and challenged him to take a cognitive test.
Now, however, critics are raising those same questions about Trump ― and many were baffled and alarmed by the stream-of-consciousness turn in his latest speech:
What in the world is he even talking about? He’s not well… https://t.co/l2QmojGaFw
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) October 11, 2024
A point Harris campaign can't make, but I will:
1) Listen to this brief segment.
2) Reflect that if Trump were elected, his term would run until Jan 2029.
3) Approximate the odds of his steepening decline in that time.
4) And thus odds that 25th amendment gives us JDV. https://t.co/iZYqISYDwK— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) October 10, 2024
Are the circles in the room with us now? https://t.co/cnJUnJmxqI
— Adam Schiff (@AdamSchiff) October 11, 2024
Trump’s mental capacity: pic.twitter.com/fSoYIGzTu5
— Veterans For Responsible Leadership (@VetsForRL) October 10, 2024
So Trump says something that reminds him of SpaceX rockets and he decides to describe them landing on targets, then that image makes him recall another image of circles on the ground—social distancing at Biden campaign events 4 years ago—and he decides to talk about that https://t.co/ElfxjeQ5SD
— Roger Sollenberger (@SollenbergerRC) October 10, 2024
By any standard..insane https://t.co/G0zNNU7Rbt
— Carla ‘Bluechecked’ Marinucci (@cmarinucci) October 10, 2024
What the fuck is he talking about? https://t.co/yYBwEZXPuy
— Fred Wellman (@FPWellman) October 10, 2024
The gas he audibly passed during this speech made more sense than this. https://t.co/hcEr2dLNFz
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) October 10, 2024
Seems notable that the Republican candidate for President of the United States is clearly addled and unwell. https://t.co/inkaWBA7WB
— Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) October 10, 2024
Trump is almost 80 and he's lost
It. Listen to this and tell me how he can possibly be president. Listen and imagine Biden talking like this for 90 seconds and what you would say about his ability to be president. Trump is not longer fit or capable to be president. https://t.co/F1sRjoZEiS— Barry Markson (@BarryMarkson1) October 11, 2024
I've heard of stream-of-consciousness, but while he's streaming words I'd say conscious thought has gone AWOL. https://t.co/Hw0G2T4Ern
— alison campbell 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ toitū te tiriti (@AcampbelTeacher) October 11, 2024