Dr. John Paul Garrison, a clinical and forensic psychologist specializing in body language cues, noted a recent moment of confusion by President Donald Trump and found it problematic.
A video of Trump went viral this week after he appeared to salute his Marine One helicopter. Typically, when Trump boards Marine One, two Marines stand on either side of the stairs. Presidents typically salute them in return. Trump returned the salute, but no one was standing there saluting in the first place.
“So, if you notice in the background, there is a construction worker back there. He is not positioned where President Trump is going to be looking in a minute, but I do want to acknowledge that there is somebody back there,” the doctor said. “And down at the bottom of the hill there, it appears that those might be police or something similar. Some sort of law enforcement appears to be at the bottom of the hill.”
Trump appears to wave at the law enforcement, then looks up and off into the distance. However, the camera pans out, there’s no one else around.
“Now, Reuters has said that he was waving at construction workers. They have a photograph that is captioned that. So, it is possible maybe that there’s some back there. I can’t see them when the camera pulls back,” he acknowledges.
“So, to do it twice is peculiar behavior,” the doctor noted. “Obviously, it’s more peculiar if absolutely nobody’s there, but it would be surprising if he waved at them and then did it again shortly afterward. So, as the camera pulls back, we can clearly see that there doesn’t appear to be anybody else unaccounted for in the frame.”
He said that this is something that is known to happen with people who have a neurodegenerative disease and people who have dementia.
“They misinterpret their environment around them. Sometimes they see things that aren’t there. But something like this could happen from neurodegenerative problems,” Garrison explained. “It’s also impossible that this is socially inappropriate behavior because somebody was way far away and couldn’t even see him. Maybe he thought that they could. There could be misunderstandings about how the world around him is functioning.”
He said it’s something he intends to keep an eye on.
Then there was an incident in Dalton, Georgia. In the video, Trump leaves the stage as his Village People song plays. The limousine known as “The Beast” is parked and the doors are open, ready for him. He appears to walk past it and toward an open field. Secret Service agents scramble, ushering him toward the car.
“This is the type of behavior you would expect for someone who is dealing with dementiadementia, who’s dealing with Alzheimer’s type dementia or vascular dementia potentially,” Garrison explained. “There’s a wide variety of different issues that could contribute to this kind of behavior. But this type of wandering off, the lack of social awareness, all of those do seem like they are related to some form of neurological decline.”
Finally, Garrison talks about the clash Trump had with Independent reporter Andrew Feinberg. The agitation was evident, he noted and as people grow more advanced in dementia they tend to struggle regulating their emotions.
“He doesn’t know how to control these strong feelings he’s having,” Garrison said.