Donald Trump set out to prove he is as sharp and unstoppable as ever. Instead, one analyst says, he only managed to underline the very problem he was trying to swat away.
In a Truth Social rant defending his age and physical stamina, the former president railed against recent coverage that questioned whether he is slowing down as he nears 80. The posts came after a New York Times story dug into his public stumbles, verbal misfires, and increasingly visible signs of aging, placing him in the same unflattering spotlight that has dogged other elderly politicians.
Appearing on MS Now over the weekend, journalist and political analyst Hayes Brown argued that Trump’s outburst is doing him no favors. After walking through what he called a “chaotic and unprecedented” power play Democrats might be able to try, Brown was asked about the Times piece and Trump’s reaction to it.
Of Trump’s defenses, the host pressed him, “But you say all this does is prove the point. How so?”
Brown’s answer cut straight to the heart of the image Trump has spent years building. “I think that if you are pushing 80 and unwilling to admit, yes, I am aging. Yes, I am slowing down. Yes, some things may take me longer, but I’m doing it the best I can, that I think, and just pretending it’s not happening, that is a hit to your credibility,” he said.
Trump has long sold himself to supporters as larger than life, the dealmaker who never tires, the showman who feeds off rallies and late night posting sprees. Brown pointed out that myth directly.
“I know that the mythos that he’s putting out there, this this aura of invincibility that he is eternal, that he is so powerful, so strong, the utmost of masculinity,” he said. “I know that that is what he puts out there to his base. That’s the image he wants to project, and that aging undercuts that. So he wants to try to ignore it. But the problem is, aging is a reality.”
From there, Brown zoomed out to the culture at large, arguing that Trump is hardly the only American who struggles to say out loud that time is catching up. “I feel like in this country especially, we fetishize youth and aging is a taboo,” he said. “And so in the emphasis of the former and vitality and strength, we want to not even look at the latter.”
The twist, in Brown’s view, is that Trump is now caught in his own trap. By insisting he is as unstoppable as ever and raging at any suggestion otherwise, he is making voters focus even more closely on the moments when he does look unsteady.
“So in trying to deny the fact that he is getting older, Trump is I feel like drawing more attention to those moments where it’s obvious, like it’s almost a Streisand effect, you know what I’m saying?” Brown said. “Like where even trying to deny a story and put something down, you’re drawing more attention to it.”
Trump wanted to swat away a storyline about age, decline, and what a second term might look like as his 80s approach. Instead, his angry posturing has turned that storyline into yet another test of his ego, his image, and how much longer he can convince his base that time simply does not apply to him.
