Trump is 80 – and he’s never looked so manic ...Middle East

As America wakes up to life under its second octogenarian president, some are concerned about how rapidly Donald Trump is ageing and what many call a decline in his capacity to govern.

Critics recently noted that his schedule appeared to have been reduced, with the US President making fewer public appearances and domestic trips than in his first term. Trump responded by asking his aides to list meetings and interviews that would not typically appear on his public calendar, reflecting what his team says are jam-packed days.

But others say his busy schedule is part of the problem, claiming the unpredictable leader is ramping up his frenzied social media activity, theatrical set-pieces and erratic foreign policy decisions to alarming levels.

Sunday’s UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) event, staged at a stadium erected on the South Lawn of the White House to coincide with Trump’s 80th birthday, is seen by many as a prime example of this.

With an Iran peace deal inching closer and Trump determined to create a lasting legacy, the world is holding its breath to see what the oldest president ever inaugurated will do in his ninth decade – and final two years in office.

Asleep at the Knicks

During the 2024 presidential election, one of Trump’s main lines of attack on then-President Joe Biden was that he was too old and senile for the role. “Sleepy Joe”, who left office as the oldest ever US president at the age of 82, will lose this crown when Trump’s term ends in 2029.

Like the Biden White House, Trump’s team now regularly releases updates on his health to try to quash rumours that he is declining.

Pictures of him apparently asleep at the Knicks’ basketball game last week helped fuel claims that lack of sleep is affecting his ability to govern. It was one in a string of public events and meetings at which the President had appeared to doze off. He has previously insisted he is always alert, and simply sometimes closes his eyes to listen.

“Despite telling pictures of Trump apparently sleeping or dozing off, instances of verbal incoherence, erratic decision-making, irrelevant speech and the profanity-laden threat to bomb Iran out of existence, the White House have issued bland assurances that all is OK,” said John Owens, professor of US Government and Politics at the University of Westminster.

Health experts have also expressed concern about Trump’s physical health due to bruising on his hands and a rash on his neck, prompting the White House to give details of his treatment. After his most recent examination, involving an unprecedented 22 medical professionals, the White House pronounced that the President had received a “perfect bill of health“.

“President Trump is the sharpest and most accessible president in American history who is working nonstop to solve problems and deliver on his promises, and he remains in excellent health,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Associated Press last month.

But these denials are not enough to shut down the conversation, according to Dr Katie Pruszynski, a political psychologist and vice chair of the American Politics Group. “We get these medical reports that look, to the untrained eye, completely detached from reality,” she said.

She added that while it’s “hard to say” as a layperson whether anything is medically wrong with Trump, there has been a shift in his behaviour in his second term, which is impossible to ignore.

‘Reckless’ and ‘extreme’

Pruszynski says that while Trump’s first term was guided by more traditional Republican policies, he is now listening to people pursuing a “more extreme agenda” such as Stephen Miller, the key White House adviser known for powering an immigration crackdown. She believes those around him are taking advantage of the fact that Trump is “distracted by his own grievances” and “less capable now of holding together an administration”.

For example, she said that his “recklessness” in going to war with Iran is something that would not have happened in his first term. “He can’t bring Israel into line. He can’t seem to get this peace negotiation done with Iran,” she said. “It’s really difficult to pick apart whether that’s coming from his own decline and changes in his behaviour, or because other people are stepping into that breach and pushing their ideological agenda through a much weakened President Trump.”

Owens also warned that Trump’s “mental state” is concerning foreign allies, who fear his “ad-hoc” approach exposes them to threats to their national security. He added that “it seems inevitable that the perceptions of erratic governance and strategic US weakness will not have been lost on states hostile to the US”.

As with all presidents in their second term, Trump is no longer expecting re-election, so his policymaking is less concerned with what will appeal to voters. Instead, Trump is looking ahead to how he will be remembered as President, focusing on big “vanity projects” like the White House ballroom, says Pruszynski.

His birthday celebrations themselves demonstrate this concern, says Dr Dafydd Townley, an expert on US-UK politics at the University of Portsmouth. “He’s a big narcissist. He wants to be seen as some sort of strong man, monarch figure,” he said. “That’s why we have things like the Trump Kennedy Center, which is an awful decision to make … and that’s why we’ve got a UFC fight on the White House lawn this evening.”

Pruszynski agreed with Townley that the next few years will be marked by a shift in foreign policy focus to the Western hemisphere, once a deal with Iran is agreed, fuelled by Trump’s “sense of going after the people that he feels have wronged and slighted him”.

She said: “It’s about positioning America from a place of kind of maximal strength. That is ultimately the administration’s goal at this point, fuelled by Trump’s sort of sense of going after the people that he feels have wronged him and slighted him.”

His age also makes this legacy push loom larger for him than for younger presidents, Pruszynski says.

“It feels like the last roll of the dice, not just in his presidency, but also he won’t get many more chances to do big things to change and cement his status after he leaves the presidency,” she said. “There’s a sort of psychological sense that he hasn’t got much time left to be the figure that he wants people to see him as, and that’s driving him.”

What happens if Trump cannot lead

After the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, the 25th amendment to the Constitution was put in place to ensure the country would not be left leaderless in the event of a President becoming incapacitated. The amendment gives the Cabinet the power, along with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to remove a president who is deemed to be “incapable of doing the job” and install the Vice President in his place.

The process, which has never been tested, was designed for clear-cut situations like “an assassination attempt or a stroke,” said Dr Richard Johnson, a lecturer in US politics at Queen Mary University. It would be “really tricky” for it to be triggered for a “grey area” incapacitation like dementia or other age-related diseases, he added.

It’s also an incredibly risky thing for a Cabinet to do – if they failed in their attempted coup, the President could sack them all. He thinks Trump’s Cabinet is unlikely to take the risk.

“It’s a very loyal group of people there,” he said. “The Cabinet may actually see it as an opportunity, though. If you’re in a position where the president is not fully compos mentis, but he’s not obviously out of it, then that can become a space for those around him to actually grow their power.”

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