Trump's 'diminished capacities' tied to age on MS NOW: 'Wonder if that's what we see'

MS NOW's Joe Scarborough wondered if President Donald Trump's advanced age explained his increasingly erratic policies.

The president will turn 80 years old next month, the "Morning Joe" host said reacting to a newly published piece in The Atlantic by co-host Jonathan Lemire that highlighted growing concerns about Trump's age-related decline.

"Any suggestion that Donald Trump has dementia or is losing whatever, it's ridiculous," Scarborough said. "I said the same thing about Joe Biden, went and talked to him for three hours, and, yes, Biden was moving very slow, very stiff. Donald Trump may be slowing down, but I think what we're really seeing here, and what I really pulled from your article is that for the president, who's about to turn 80 this month, this next month, for a president, who is always been erratic, as he turns 80, we are seeing some diminished capacities with anybody who would turn 80."

"But that erraticism, we are seeing it exaggerated, and I wonder if that's what we see playing out, where he's just not just saying the quiet part out loud," Scarborough added. "He's screaming it."

Scarborough pointed to the president's increasingly erratic and belligerent foreign policy as an example.

"He wants to abandon our Polish allies, he wants to abandon Ukraine, as he as he continues to do," Scarborough said. "He wants to abandon our German allies. he wants to do everything he can do to help Vladimir Putin. Because make no mistake of it, all the people that have been going around yelling 'Russia hoax, Russia hoax, Russia hoax,' and will be triggered by this because of their own unique version of 'Trump derangement syndrome.'"

"What you actually have is a president doing everything that Vladimir Putin would want him to do," he added. "Just ask anybody that's been in this field – Vladimir Putin, couldn't call these shots any better himself, and so whatever draws him to Vladimir Putin, whatever drew him to Putin in his 70s, it seems to be even more exaggerated now as he turns 80."

Lemire agreed, saying Trump has become even less inhibited as he ages.

"What's really here, and people I've talked to suggest that as he has aged, he has even less and less of a filter," Lemire said. "Now, let's be clear, Donald Trump has never been one for self-censoring, but he is someone who now is more purely himself as he ages. It's disinhibition, there's whatever pops in his head, he says, and he also relies more and more, as you just said, Joe, falls back on these instincts, one of them being reflexively sort of, you know, deference to strongmen, whether that is Xi Jinping and China. We saw that on vivid display last week, and certainly for a decade or more, what we have seen with Vladimir Putin, and there really is no other reason for this."

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