'Steep Neurological Decline': Psychologist Raises Alarm Over Donald Trump's Manic-Like Behaviour

A US psychologist has claimed that President Donald Trump's recent television interview and flurry of social media posts are consistent with what he describes as 'steep neurological decline' and a 'manic-like state,' in a YouTube video released on Tuesday.

Questions about Trump's physical and cognitive health have simmered for years, fuelled by his age, his public schedule and his often chaotic speaking style. The White House has repeatedly said the president is in good health. In a medical memorandum published in May 2026, the physician to the president said Trump demonstrated 'strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and overall physical function.'

The latest concerns came from Dr John Paul Garrison, a clinical and forensic psychologist whose video analyses of Trump's behaviour have drawn online attention.

In his new video, Garrison walks viewers through a recent Fox News appearance and a burst of posts on Truth Social, arguing that Trump's speech patterns, eye appearance, and social media habits now point to something more troubling than his usual political theatrics.

Psychologist Dissects Donald Trump Interview Clip

Garrison opens his case with a short Fox News clip in which Trump predicts that the price of oil is 'going to go down like a rocket.' On the surface, it sounds like standard Trump-style exaggeration. Garrison urges viewers to listen more carefully.

According to the psychologist, that one line contains 'two neurological issues,' both verbal. Garrison interprets the phrase as a combination of expressions such as 'go down like a rock' and 'go up like a rocket.' He argues that the wording may indicate difficulty planning speech and organising thoughts in real time, although the clip alone does not establish a neurological cause.

He also highlights what he calls an 'involuntary vocalisation' in the same clip, replaying the moment to draw attention to an abrupt noise Trump makes mid-sentence. 'The pathways that deal with language are disrupted,' Garrison says in the video. He interprets the sound as evidence of what he describes as 'serious issues with language' and claims similar vocalisations are relatively new for the president.

Garrison then shifts to a longer section of the Fox News interview, where Trump attempts to describe his plans for the midterm elections. The president tells the host: 'I'm going to campaign like I did for myself and I'm going to hope that people think that I'm on. And if I'm not on, if they don't go out and vote, if they go out and vote, we're going to win easily.'

Garrison describes the passage as evidence that Trump is struggling to organise his thoughts. 'What he's saying makes absolutely no sense,' he says, framing the meandering sentence as a sign of 'neurological issues' affecting verbal planning, rather than just loose rhetoric.

Dilated Pupils and 'Manic-Like' Posting Raise Fresh Donald Trump Questions

The video does not stop at Trump's words. Garrison also focuses on Trump's pupils, which he says appear unusually dilated in several frames from the Fox interview. He notes that light reflections are visible in Trump's eyes and argues that the apparent pupil size warrants attention, although television footage alone cannot establish whether the pupils were abnormally dilated or why.

'Dilated pupils like this can be from a wide variety of reasons, but it's not just something that happens,' he tells viewers. He says pupil dilation can have a range of causes, including certain medications, and mentions drugs used to treat conditions such as incontinence, Parkinson's disease and seizures as examples rather than specific claims about Trump.

The president's recently released medical report provides no public evidence of any of those conditions. Taking that document at face value, Garrison goes on to float other potential explanations. 'One would be stimulants,' he says, adding that these can cause dilation. Another possibility, he suggests, is 'some sort of neurological impairment,' including brain injuries that affect the pathways controlling pupil responses.

Garrison nevertheless argues that the apparent pupil changes could warrant further neurological consideration, while acknowledging that the cause cannot be established from the footage alone. The publicly released medical information does not establish the conditions he raises. In fact, the May 2026 White House memorandum said Trump demonstrated strong neurological function.

The psychologist's concerns extend to Trump's online behaviour. He spends a notable portion of the YouTube analysis on the president's recent activity on Truth Social, describing a weekend posting binge as an 'explosion of outright mania.' Garrison uses the phrase to characterise the tone of the posts, though he does not purport to make a formal psychiatric diagnosis of mania.

According to Garrison, Trump's feed during that period was dominated by unusually expansive proposals, including suggestions that Lake Ontario be renamed and that New Mexico be rebranded as 'New America.'

He argues this pattern reflects 'grandiosity and poor judgment,' even if Trump is partly goading his critics, and says the posts suggest reduced awareness of how others might perceive them. 'His behaviour on Truth Social has truly gotten strange,' he says.

Garrison uses the clinical term 'perseveration' to describe what he sees as repeated returns to the same idea. He claims Trump posted variations of the 'New America' notion seven times in an hour and interprets the repeated posts as evidence that Trump is unusually fixated on the expansion theme, rather than simply running a standard political message track.

'The obsession with and the perseveration on everything being his or being America's is only growing by the day,' Garrison warns, arguing that Trump is 'truly hyperfixated' on such notions. He contends that reduced insight can accompany some neurological conditions and says he believes that possibility is relevant when assessing the president's recent behaviour.

By the end of the video, Garrison's language is stark. He talks of 'involuntary vocalisations,' 'more confusion' and an ongoing struggle with verbal skills, and describes Trump's current state as 'some type of episode,' marked by 'grandiosity and obsessiveness and perseveration that is off the charts.'

The White House has not publicly responded to Garrison's latest analysis, and Trump's personal physicians have not commented. The available footage and social media posts do not establish a medical explanation for Trump's behaviour. Garrison's reading remains one psychologist's opinion based on public material, set against an official medical assessment that, at least on paper, still describes a president in strong neurological health.