President Donald Trump has become increasingly “paranoid” about his mental decline—particularly fears it could lead to the invocation of the 25th Amendment, a psychologist told The Daily Beast Podcast.
Dr. John Gartner sat down with host Joanna Coles to discuss a tell-all Wall Street Journal article in which the 79-year-old president admitted he was wearing compression socks to treat his swollen ankles and expressed frustration in the phone interview that the public was discussing his health “for the 25th time,” before announcing that his health was “perfect.”
“We’re talking about it for the 25th time because people keep saying it’s 25th Amendment time,” said Gartner, referring to the constitutional provision that outlines the process for presidential succession and the transfer of power in cases of death, resignation, removal, or incapacity.
The former Johns Hopkins professor—who has previously said on the podcast that he believes Trump is exhibiting “clinical signs of dementia” that are exacerbating his “malignant narcissism”—said he is “sure” the president is “paranoid” about a “threat to power” that may be caused by his declining physical and cognitive health.
“No story enrages Donald Trump more than the stories about his physical and cognitive health. And there’s a reason for that,” the psychologist told Coles, noting that Trump “knows that he’s covering something up,” but as a “malignant narcissist,” he has to keep projecting strength.
“As he’s starting to deteriorate, one of the signs of dementia is people becoming more paranoid. The paranoia is becoming more grotesque, more primitive,” Gartner said of the president, emphasizing that the “paranoia” may include feeling like people are “threatening” him.
During his second term, the president has shown little inhibition about going after his perceived enemies, a pattern his White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles acknowledged by calling it “retribution.”
One example included Trump posting on Truth Social a private message to Attorney General Pam Bondi, urging her to prosecute his nemesis and former FBI director James Comey, along with other targets.
Gartner suggested that the type of dementia he believes Trump shows signs of having is “frontotemporal dementia,” which causes the frontal lobes to deteriorate. Rather than primarily affecting memory, a key symptom is that it “disinhibits people to basically act out badly,” the psychologist said.
“So we have this person who has virtually absolute power and no guardrails, who, in a demented state, is impulsively being driven to act out in these paranoid and destructive and crazy ways,” Gartner said.
In one of his “absolute power” moves, on Saturday, after the US abruptly captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, the president revealed the US would “run” Venezuela, seize its oil, and may soon take aim at the “failing nation” of Cuba. At the same time, Trump renamed a two-century-old policy of U.S. leadership in the Western Hemisphere, the “Monroe Doctrine,” in his name, calling it the “Donroe Doctrine.“
“He really could do almost anything,” Gartner said, stating that the president is “completely cognitively confused,” which means “he can also do something that just doesn’t even make any sense, or that completely reflects a disordered view of reality.”
Despite Gartner’s claims, the president bragged on Friday in a Truth Social post that he “‘ACED’ (Meaning, was correct on 100% of the questions asked!)” his cognitive test for the third time, maintaining that he is in “PERFECT HEALTH.”
In response to a request for comment, White House Assistant Press Secretary Liz Huston reiterated this sentiment, writing, “As the President’s physician, Dr. Sean Barbabella, has made clear time and again — and as the American people see with their own eyes every single day — President Trump remains in excellent overall health.“
“President Trump’s relentless work ethic, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility stand in sharp contrast to what we saw during the past four years when the failing legacy media intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s serious mental and physical decline from the American people. Pushing these fake and desperate narratives now about President Trump is why Americans’ trust in the media just fell to a new all-time low,” Huston concluded.
Yet, Gartner noted that the MoCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment) test, which has been designed as an instrument to test for mild cognitive dysfunction, is not taken “repeatedly” unless someone is “being monitored for dementia.”
The psychologist recommended that anyone seeking more evidence of Trump’s mental decline should read a New Republic article detailing “Trump’s 11 Most Senile Moments” in 2025, which included incidents such as the president falling asleep in front of cameras and repeatedly saying the word “groceries,” a word he appeared fixated on.
When asked by Coles what he would say to people working with and around the president daily as he shows symptoms of mental and physical decline, Gartner had a simple answer: “invoke the 25th Amendment.”
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