Donald Trump responds to media portrayal of him as ‘cognitively impaired’

At a rally in Philadelphia on June 22, former US President Donald Trump voiced his frustration with media portrayals, claiming he is unfairly depicted as “cognitively impaired” for minor verbal slip-ups.

Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Philadelphia on June 22, 2024. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP)(AFP)

The Republican presidential hopeful contrasted this treatment with that of President Joe Biden, asserting that Biden could “fall off the stage” without facing similar scrutiny from the press, but if he says “one word slightly out” then they make it a huge issue.

The 78-year-old former President has secured enough delegates to become his party’s presumptive nominee following a series of primary victories, setting the stage for a potential rematch with Biden, 81, in the coming November.

Their frequent gaffes have heightened concerns about both candidates’ ages and mental agility. Many have raised the question of whether they can run the States in their second term.

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Trump criticized the media at the Philadelphia rally, stating, “If I blow it up here, though, they—actually, they take a perfect, brilliant, beautiful statement that I make. I go for two hours without teleprompters, and if I say one word slightly out they say, ‘He’s cognitively impaired.’ Whereas Biden can run into walls. He can fall off the stage. He can fall up the stairs. He falls up.”

“Few communities have suffered more under the Biden regime than Philadelphia. Under Crooked Joe, the City of Brotherly Love is being ravaged by bloodshed and crime.”

“Retail theft in Philly—I spend so much time here—is up 135 per cent since I left office,” he added.

Both Biden and Trump have faced criticism for a series of perceived gaffes

In an interview with Time magazine earlier in June, Biden appeared to confuse Russian President Vladimir Putin with Chinese President Xi Jinping and inaccurately stated that Africa’s population would reach 1 billion “in the next several years,” whereas it is already 1.4 billion.

At a rally in Phoenix earlier this month, Trump mistakenly referred to Texas while speaking in Arizona, saying, “What they’re doing here in Texas.” His spokesperson later clarified, “President Trump was obviously saying ‘here’ as in Arizona and then mentions Texas as well.”

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In Philadelphia, Trump also focused on crime, rejecting recently released FBI statistics showing a 15 percent decline in violent crime in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. He dismissed these statistics, claiming, “But the FBI crime statistics Biden is pushing are fake. They’re fake, just like everything else in this administration.”