Progressive commentator David Pakman used a recent episode of his eponymous show to parallel Donald Trump’s Friday press conference on a coronavirus vaccine to the purported “fake work environment” created for his father while he struggled with dementia.
“This entire event felt like an event put together for Trump’s ego,” the YouTube host said. “And I’m reminded, as some of you know, Donald Trump’s late father, Fred Trump, had dementia — quite serious dementia — towards the end of his life. And at a certain point, they sort of concocted like a fake work environment for Fred Trump.”
The pundit claimed that the president’s father would still show up at the workplace, where he had a phone and papers to make him feel like he was working. Contrary to what the businessman believed, the location was tightly controlled and the phone only linked to the secretary in the main room of the office.
Per Vanity Fair , the alleged workplace was created by Fred Trump’s family to help him feel like he was still in control of the company.
“Fred pretended to work,” a family friend said.
Pakman continued to highlight that Pfizer denied taking part in Trump’s Operation Warp Speed and suggested the company believes he is on his way out of the White House.
“But they sort of like set up a show press conference for Trump to feel like he’s doing stuff,” he said.
Despite Pfizer’s denial, the commander-in-chief used the White House Rose Garden event to push back on these claims and associate them with the public-private partnership designed to drive the creation and distribution of the vaccine.
“Pfizer said it wasn’t part of Warp Speed, but that turned out to be a unfortunate misrepresentation. They are part.”
In a 2019 op-ed for USA Today , psychologist John Gartner expressed concern over the possibility that the head of state is suffering from a form of cognitive decline. He noted that the U.S. leader passed the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which was administrated by his physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson. Nevertheless, he highlighted that the test only cleared Trump of full-blown dementia — and not its early stages.
Gartner is featured in the movie #Unfit where he covers Trump’s alleged cognitive deterioration. In particular, he pointed to interviews the real estate mogul gave in the 1980s and 1990s and compared his verbal ability to today, which he argues is significantly worse. According to the author, the president’s speech is now filled with superlatives and filler words, which he said is concerning.
