“Trump uses profanity 2.5 times as often as a decade ago... Questions raised about mental stability”

[Financial News] U.S. media have reported that President Donald Trump’s public remarks are becoming increasingly vulgar and rambling, and less logical.
According to the U.S. daily The New York Times (NYT), on the 1st (local time), an analysis of Trump’s remarks from 2015, when he first ran for president, to the present found that he used categorical expressions such as “always,” “never” and “completely” 19% more often than a decade ago and 5% more often than in 2024. NYT described this as “a sign of black-and-white thinking commonly seen when cognitive function declines.”
Vulgar language has also increased. Trump now uses about 15 profanities per 10,000 words, compared with 14 two years ago and six a decade ago.
Recently, Trump has repeatedly made inappropriate remarks without hesitation in public and freely hurled crude personal attacks, prompting concern that his self-restraint may have declined further.
At campaign rallies supporting Republican candidates in the midterm elections, he repeatedly praised a candidate’s buttocks. He also snapped at a reporter asking a question he disliked, saying the reporter was out of their mind and shouting at them to be quiet.
NYT noted, “President Trump has repeatedly behaved in ways that are difficult to understand at nationwide campaign rallies and at the White House this fall, reviving questions about his mental stability.”
His remarks have also become more rambling and disorganized. During his second term, the number of times he rambled or delivered hard-to-understand remarks in speeches was 2.5 times that during his 2016 campaign rallies. The length of his speeches has also risen sharply, from 42 minutes a decade ago to 85 minutes now.
Meanwhile, official engagements have fallen from an average of 2.1 per day in his first term to 1.3, while his social media posts have risen sharply to an average of 21 per day, up from 13 in 2016. A night owl who tends to stay up late, he posted between midnight and 5 a.m. on about three days out of every 10 during his second term, and there were as many as 240 occasions when he posted at least 10 times in an hour.
The White House dismissed concerns that Trump was no longer what he used to be. White House communications official Davis Ingle stressed, “President Trump is showing sharp judgment and unparalleled energy,” adding, “The American people love the president’s unvarnished and transparent manner.”
In the report, NYT noted that what had remained much the same as before was Trump’s vocabulary and level of speech. It explained that the level of U.S. presidents’ remarks is generally around that of an eighth grader, while Trump’s is at a fourth- to fifth-grade level and has remained similar to before.
[email protected] Hong Chae-wan Reporter