President Donald Trump’s seeming cognitive decline is so serious, experts have worried about his control of America’s nuclear arsenal. Trump’s aides insist that the reports of his supposed mental health issues are exaggerated — but a new survey reveals Americans are not buying it.
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“The Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll, conducted July 14-17, 2026, among 1,514 U.S. adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points, found that 46 percent of Americans rate Trump’s mental sharpness as president as ‘poor,’” Newsweek reported on Wednesday.
This figure, which is only four points lower than the number of Americans who believe President Joe Biden was cognitively not fit for office, occurs roughly a month after Trump turned 80 and thereby became only the second octogenarian to serve in the White House — following Biden himself.
The Trump White House protested against these findings in a statement to Newsweek. White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the venerable magazine that the president is “the sharpest and most accessible President in American history who is working nonstop to solve problems and deliver on his promises.”
Ingle did not stop there.
“President Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility stand in stark contrast to what we saw during the last administration when Democrats and the legacy media intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s serious mental and physical decline from the American people,” Ingle continued.
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Speaking to AlterNet in May, psychiatrist Dr. Henry Abraham (formerly of Tufts University) — chief signatory of a letter to Congress by a group of 36 top physicians and mental health experts warning about Trump’s apparent decline — broke down the signs that Trump is deteriorating.
“There has been a frightening progression of symptoms,” Abraham told AlterNet at the time. “These include grandiosity without moral safeguards, paranoia, impulsivity, vindictiveness, easy misperception of being harmed, moments of omnipotence, uncontrolled rage, and sole control over the use of nuclear weapons in a time of war. As a psychiatrist reviewing these, I can only say Yikes!”
Abraham added that to address Trump’s potential issues,“the solutions have to be political.”
He argued, “They include invoking the 25th amendment, impeachment, or convincing him to resign as Nixon did. None of these are an easy lift, especially with a loyalist cabinet and Congress. But the irony is that our leaders don’t lead as much as they follow. A recent poll by the Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos group found a majority of [Americans] do not believe the president is physically or mentally able to discharge his duties. The public is waking up to these dangers. As they do, the political landscape may shift towards removal of a defective and dangerous leader.”
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