Is Trump in Trouble? As Debate Looms

Is Trump in Trouble? As Debate Looms

Is Trump in Trouble? As Debate Looms, Former President Donald J. Trump would become the oldest individual to hold the Oval Office since President Biden is no longer a candidate. However, voters are becoming concerned as a result of his rambling and occasionally incomprehensible public remarks.

When the country last hosted a presidential debate, a candidate who had been in office for roughly eight decades had to demonstrate that he was still capable of leading the nation. He was unsuccessful.

After two and a half months, the group of people has changed, and one candidate who is on his way to becoming an octogenarian must face his own exam to prove he has not aged. Who takes the Oval Office next could be determined by the results of that test.

Compared to President Biden, who is 81 years old, former President Donald J. Trump, who is 78, speaks louder and with greater vigor, but he has also made mistakes in identity, mispronounced facts, and fumbled over his ideas. Many voters are beginning to distrust Mr. Trump’s mental state as a result of his meandering speeches, occasionally illogical remarks, and intense outbursts. This is evident in polls.

The politics surrounding age have taken a radical shift since Mr. Biden withdrew from the campaign. At eighty-two, Mr. Trump would be the oldest president in history should he win the presidency. He is already the oldest candidate to run for president on a major party ticket. While Mr. Biden was his opponent, he was able to avoid concerns about his own abilities; but, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is 59 years old and nearly two decades younger than him, will be his opponent on Tuesday in the prime-time debate in Philadelphia.

Also Read: Hillary Clinton Helps Kamala Harris in Debating Trump

A video of the conversation went viral, inspiring headlines that used terms like “gibberish,” “incoherence,” and “incomprehensible.” The White House and Ms. Harris’s supporters jumped in, making fun of the “word salad,” as some Democrats referred to it. The second-ranking Democrat in the House, Representative Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts, stated on social media that “he couldn’t string together a coherent sentence.”

Analysts predicted that Mr. Trump will come under closer scrutiny throughout the debate as a result. “Trump is now subject to the same ‘coherence’ test as was Biden because the Harris campaign and press drew attention to the incoherence of his answer to the question about child care,” Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a presidential communication expert at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said.

Mr. Trump has long engaged in discursive, roundabout, off-script speaking that would not pass muster with an English teacher. Diagraming his sentences with a noun, verb and object can be daunting. He floats from one subject to another seemingly at random, often baffling listeners looking for a main point, a pattern that experts call tangentiality that increases with age. And he throws out wild assertions with no basis in fact.

In his defense of his mental fitness, he has misidentified his previous doctor, repeatedly claimed to have defeated Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton, and mixed up Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi. He drifted into a peculiar argumentative dead end during a June event in Nevada, speculating about whether it would be preferable to be electrocuted in the ocean or attacked by a shark while on a sinking boat. He offered, “I’ll take electrocution every time.” “I refuse to approach the shark. So that we may put an end to that. For boats, we’re going to stop that.

Also Read: Trump Mocks Harris’s ‘Tiny Crowds’

His self-destructive habit is so ingrained that even allies find themselves rolling their eyes. He made claims on Friday that he had assaulted a woman on an airline in the 1970s without being questioned. He said, “I know you’re going to think it’s a bad thing to say, but she wouldn’t have been the chosen one, and it couldn’t have happened.”

Speaking at the Democratic National Convention last month, Stephanie Grisham—who previously worked as Mr. Trump’s press secretary in the White House but left him following the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021—said that Mr. Trump “can be disciplined when he wants to be” and that, considering the constraints of time and rules, she anticipates that he will win the debate on Tuesday.

She then on, “But I think his ramblings are definitely getting worse.” “I’m not sure if it’s a sign of aging or a mental illness. It’s sad, but I believe that the public, media, and even his fans have become used to a man who constantly lies and babbles.

When contacted for comment on Monday, campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung denied any criticism of the previous president’s abilities. He stated in an email, “The fact is that President Trump has more energy and more stamina than anyone in politics.” “People are aware that Donald Trump is the most formidable contender. Though she still avoids the media, Kamala Harris has been outworked and outrun by him.

Recently, Mr. Trump has begun to refer to his style of speaking as “the weave,” implying that he is skillfully fusing several seemingly unconnected subjects into brilliant speeches. He remarked last month, “I’ll talk about like nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together.”

Also Read: Good News for Trump in Hush Money Case

With the exception of his rally-attending supporters, who primarily seem amused and frequently comprehend the cryptic, incomprehensible shorthand allusions he makes, the majority of voters have not had much opportunity to engage with Mr. Trump’s conversational style recently. However, Tuesday’s tens of millions of viewers on ABC will probably be the highest number before to the election.

The challenge posed by Mr. Trump differs from that of Mr. Biden. During the discussion on June 27, which ultimately resulted in the termination of his candidacy, Mr. Biden looked pale and weak, found it difficult to express his ideas clearly or authoritatively, and even seemed to go blank.

A seasoned congressional Republican strategist named Ron Bonjean stated, “It’s not a question of age, because Trump remains energetic.” “He needs to persuade the few remaining undecided voters that Harris is not only excessively liberal but also truly adept at addressing the issues that modern families face. This requires discipline in both focus and message.”

Even still, some Republicans believe that age matters in a nation where over half of the population is under 40, as evidenced by polls showing younger people becoming more enthusiastic about Ms. Harris. Beyond the matter of Mr. Trump’s ability, his references frequently stem from landmarks that date back decades, as evidenced by his recent and perplexing references to the 1991 movie “The Silence of the Lambs.”

Al Cardenas, the former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, stated, “Many others have outlived their most productive years; Joe Biden and Donald Trump reached that inconvenient reality.” “Biden made the right choice, maybe with the support of his party’s hierarchy. It’s astonishing to observe how weak the G.O.P. hierarchy is inside to hold the same discussion with their presidential candidate.

Is Trump in Trouble? As Debate Looms

Polls show that while voters have long been concerned about Mr. Trump’s age, more of them were concerned about Mr. Biden’s. A growing number of Americans have voiced concerns about Mr. Trump’s ability in the absence of the president. In a Morning Consult study conducted last month, 51% of registered voters expressed the opinion that Mr. Trump is too old to run for president, an increase from 44% of those who held this opinion during his campaign against Mr. Biden. In a survey conducted by Marquette Law School, 57% of respondents had that opinion.

Voters have long expressed anxiety about Mr. Trump’s age, but a greater proportion of them were worried about Mr. Biden’s, according to polls. Concerns concerning Mr. Trump’s capacity to lead in the president’s absence have been expressed by an increasing number of Americans. According to a Morning Consult survey released last month, 51% of registered voters believe that Mr. Trump is too old to run for president, up from 44% who said the same thing when he was running against Mr. Biden. That’s what 57% of respondents to a Marquette Law School survey thought.

The worries were emphasized by Mr. Trump’s reaction on Thursday in New York when asked about child care. His twisted words are frequently summed up in news reports in ways that do not fully convey how perplexing they can be. But giving them a lengthy quotation can give you more background. This is a longer version of his response regarding reasonably priced child care:

Also Read: Trump and Harris Agree on Debate Rules

“That’s a really significant matter. However, I believe that when you discuss the kinds of figures I’m referring to, it’s because child care is, well, child care; you know, there’s something, you have to have it. You are required to have it in this country. However, when you compare those figures to the kind of figures I’m referring to, you can see that imposing taxes on foreign countries at levels they’re not accustomed to will take some getting used to. It won’t prevent them from doing business with us, but it will result in a very high tax on goods they bring into the nation. These figures much exceed any other figures we are discussing, including child care, that it’s going to take care.”

It appeared as though he was suggesting that by placing tariffs on imported items, the nation would be able to earn enough money to cover the cost of child care. That would be a debatable policy assumption on its own.

Millions of people later saw the response on social media, but many in the room—including the questioner—were left scratching their heads since it failed to make the argument—or any point, for that matter—clearly. It’s safe to say that the response did not hold up over time.