A prominent clinical psychologist is sounding fresh alarms about President Donald Trump’s mental state, arguing that the 79-year-old commander-in-chief’s increasingly meandering monologues about his Washington construction projects are textbook warning signs of advancing dementia and malignant narcissism. Dr. John Gartner, a former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, delivered the grim assessment in remarks published on June 11, pointing to a string of episodes — including a six-minute detour about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool during a Wisconsin farmers event on June 5 — as evidence that Trump’s cognitive decline is accelerating.
Gartner, a clinical psychologist who has practiced in Baltimore for 35 years, told the Daily Beast that Trump’s habit of veering off-topic to discuss pet projects such as the White House Ballroom, the Reflecting Pool, and a planned Triumphal Arch inspired by Paris’s Arc de Triomphe is itself diagnostic.
“Tangential speech is one of the diagnostic criteria for dementia,” Gartner said, warning that the rants will only intensify. “It’s only going to go downhill from here.”
A Pattern of Rambling Tangents
The psychologist’s warning comes after a striking run of public appearances in which Trump has fixated on his vision for remaking the nation’s capital. Between May 1 and June 5, Trump discussed his construction projects on 17 separate occasions. Between June 1 and June 11, he posted or reposted about his Washington vanity projects 30 times on Truth Social — compared with just seven posts about Iran during the same stretch.
The most-cited example unfolded on Friday, June 5, at Custer Farms in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, where farmers grappling with falling commodity prices instead found themselves listening to a six-minute riff about Washington beautification. Trump even brought along “before and after” photographs to show the polite crowd.
In May, Trump devoted a 44-minute press conference to the White House ballroom, escorting reporters through the construction site and revealing that he is quietly building an underground fortress beneath the building — complete with a military hospital, classified meeting rooms, and top-secret research facilities. “We went down six stories,” Trump said. “It’s actually far more complex.”
To Gartner, the obsession is telling. “What he’s obsessed with is a function of malignant narcissism. He’s obsessed with things that reflect glory on him,” he said. “He’s changing Washington D.C. to Trump D.C.”
Warnings Stretching Back Years
Gartner has been raising the alarm for nearly a decade. In a February 1, 2018 interview, he laid out four components of what he called Trump’s psychological unfitness: malignant narcissism, paranoia, antisocial disorder, and sadism. He is the founder of Duty to Warn, established in 2017, and contributed to psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee’s anthology “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.” He co-hosts the Shrinking Trump Podcast with psychologist Harry Segal of Cornell University.
In an April 1, 2025 interview, Gartner argued that “there is absolutely no doubt” Trump has dementia, citing a deterioration from the articulate, polished speaker he was in the 1980s to a president who, Gartner said, often “degenerates into literal incoherence.” He has acknowledged that his public diagnoses run afoul of the American Psychological Association’s Goldwater rule but described that standard as more principle than prohibition.
Other Doctors Raise Similar Concerns
On April 6, Gartner told host Joanna Coles, the Daily Beast’s chief content officer, that Trump’s “rate of deterioration is accelerating” and that he has been showing signs of frontotemporal dementia since 2019. Trump, he said, is “not the same man he was four weeks ago.”
Gartner pointed to an expletive-laden Truth Social post Trump fired off on Easter morning, threatening to strike civilian infrastructure in Iran — a potential war crime — and ending with the bizarre flourish, “Praise be to Allah.” He has also cited Trump’s repeated outbursts at female reporters, including the infamous “Quiet, piggy” remark, and the president’s call describing former President Joe Biden as mentally impaired — using a slur twice during a Monday press briefing, where Trump also appeared unable to keep his eyes open.
He is not alone. MS NOW medical analyst Dr. Vin Gupta wrote on social media that Trump is “exhibiting all the signs of dementia,” noting erratic behavior, unfinished sentences, confusion, and word-finding difficulties. Dr. Gupta highlighted Trump’s January trip to Davos, where the president confused Greenland for Iceland and appeared to forget he is president. Trump’s father died in 1999 at 93 from pneumonia complicated by Alzheimer’s disease, having been previously diagnosed with dementia — a family history his niece Mary Trump has also flagged.
The White House Pushes Back
The Trump administration has dismissed the assessments outright. White House spokesman Davis Ingle said the latest medical report from Trump’s physician describes him as in “excellent health” and fully fit to serve. “If it quacks like a duck, it may actually just be a Democrat hack doctor,” Ingle said, calling Trump “the sharpest, most accessible, and energetic president in American history.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has pointed to the UFC fight scheduled at the White House on Sunday, June 14 — Trump’s 80th birthday — as evidence of the president’s vigor. But for Gartner, the spectacle is more cause for concern than celebration. As he warned years earlier, malignant narcissism only grows worse with power — and, in his view, the man holding the nuclear codes is rapidly losing the internal controls that once kept him in check.
Sources:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/psychologist-offers-disturbing-reason-for-trumps-rambling/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/psychologist-dr-john-gartner-warns-trumps-deterioration-is-accelerating/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/psychologist-warns-trump-deterioration-accelerating-001136747.html
https://mindsitenews.org/2025/04/01/sanewashed-trump-dementia-and-mental-illness/
https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2018/02/former-hopkins-prof-says-trump-unfit-for-office