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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Gaby Hinsliff

Never mind leading the free world, if Donald Trump were your ageing father, when would you take away his car keys?

Donald Trump and JD Vance in the situation room of the White House, 21 June 2025.
Donald Trump and JD Vance in the situation room of the White House, 21 June 2025. Photograph: White House/EPA

Donald Trump’s cognitive skills are amazing. So amazing! So great! So much better than any other dumb presidential contender you could mention, at least according to Trump himself, who bragged once again last week of how he had repeatedly aced what he calls “a very hard test for a lot of people”. (It’s thought he means a screening tool for mild cognitive impairment in elderly people.)

Sure, the 79-year-old leader of the free world recently interrupted a cabinet meeting in the middle of a war to ramble on at length about a conversation he supposedly had with the head of the Sharpie pen company over supplying bespoke presidential felt-tips, of which the firm said it could find no record. And made a baffling joke about Pearl Harbor during a press conference in front of an alarmed-looking Japanese prime minister. And called the strait of Hormuz the “strait of Trump”, before adding that that was absolutely deliberate because “there are no accidents with me”. But anyway, to be clear, his mental state is great. The greatest!

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