During his statement today about his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Donald Trump’s speech suddenly slurred in the last minute of his address.
I’ve compiled a video comparing the first 30 seconds of Trump’s Jerusalem statement with the final 30 seconds or so. You’ll note that in the first few minutes, Trump is articulate and pronounces the letter “s” correction. At the end of the speech, Trump is slurring his words, can no longer pronounce the letter “s” — it comes across as “sh” — and then in closing the address, Trump even mispronounces the word “United States” as “United Shates.”
Some have wondered if Trump has dentures, others have noted that a sudden onset of slurred speech can be indicative of a stroke, or even a side effect of medication. (Trump’s sniffling and heavy breathing was back in this speech as well as well.) But Trump claims he’s perfectly healthy, and not on any medication other than statins. And he’s never admitted to wearing dentures.
Then what happened?
Below is my video comparing the beginning and the end of the Jerusalem statement, then a look at his signature today, compared to his signing of earlier executive orders:
Now have a look at Trump’s signature today, versus earlier signatures.
Here’s today’s — it’s somewhat sloppy and large:
Here’s a closer shot from C-Span — the signature is a mess:
Here’s an even better copy via the Washington Post. This copy looks less extreme than the earlier images, but you can still tell that in this signature the lines are jerky. It’s as if someone much older if drawing the signature slowly — no longer do you see the clean up and down motion in earlier Trump signatures. Look specifically at the way Trump draws the up and down lines to signify the letters “rum” in Trump — compare that to the way he used to do it in previous signatures. This one is messy, while previous signatures are drawn with very strong up and down lines. It reminds me of how my parents’ signatures degraded as they aged over the decades. But Trump’s degraded in a matter of months.
Compare that to earlier signatures, that appear cleaner, more firm and assured, and less shaky:
It’s hard to say. We do know that had this been any other American president, whose speech slurred inexplicably towards the end of a public appearance, there would be immediate public speculation about his health, and immediate demands for the White House to explain the incident the president experienced today.
But this is Donald Trump. And the fact that he issued a bogus statement about his health during the campaign, and attacked Hillary Clinton’s health with bogus claims that she was seriously ill in the final days of the campaign, makes his health just as much an issue. And in fact, it doesn’t matter that Trump has already made health an issue. He’s our president, and his health is a public mater. We deserve to know what happened.
