Mockery of President Trump’s physical stance while drinking from a glass and walking down a ramp not only serves the Left by giving the notoriously low-punching campaigner a taste of his own medicine but also baits the president into responding and directing more attention to his shortcomings.
During a commencement speech at the U.S. Military Academy on Saturday, Trump used both hands to lift and drink out of a glass of water — a water-drinking posture that also prompted mockery in 2017. At the end of the speech, he slowly and carefully walked down a ramp off the stage.
The videos went viral over the weekend, prompting his critics and those on the Left to claim they are evidence of a cognitive decline in Trump.
“Trump’s West Point speech showed a man who is physically and mentally impaired. Drinking water should not take two hands unless you are hiding a tremor,” tweeted John Dean, former counsel for President Richard Nixon and a CNN contributor.
Philippe Reines, a longtime communications adviser to Hillary Clinton, theorized that Trump has neurosyphilis, an infection in the nervous system or the brain.
Critics revisited an abrupt Trump visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in November. The White House said the visit was simply a planned checkup, but the explanation was widely doubted.
“What is the White House hiding?” tweeted Jon Cooper, a Democratic fundraiser and chairman of the Democratic Coalition Against Trump.
The commentators mimicked a strategy used incessantly by Trump’s campaign and his supporters to attack his 77-year-old challenger, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Operatives on the campaign quickly clip and distribute any verbal stumble from the former vice president and suggest that he does not have the mental faculties that he used to. Trump himself calls Biden “Sleepy Joe.”
Biden and his campaign generally ignore the charges unless he is confronted with them directly. In December, he challenged an Iowa voter who asked him about his age to a pushup contest.
But Trump did not ignore the critics and responded to the charges and attention on the clip in a tweet late Saturday evening.
“The ramp that I descended after my West Point Commencement speech was very long & steep, had no handrail and, most importantly, was very slippery. The last thing I was going to do is ‘fall’ for the Fake News to have fun with. Final ten feet I ran down to level ground. Momentum!” he wrote.
That reaction, for some, was the goal. By addressing the criticism, the president made the scrutiny automatically newsworthy, prompting major media to cover the online swipes when they might have otherwise passed on the story.
The New York Times published an article about the online attacks after Trump tweeted about it, as did CNN, the Washington Post, and other outlets. Analysis of Trump’s demeanor extended into Monday, lengthening the amount of attention on his apparent physical stumbles than otherwise would have been granted.
George Conway, an outspoken Trump critic who gains notoriety because he is married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, thanked the president for addressing the issue and “ensuring that tens of millions more Americans will see the videos,” prompting the public to “wonder what they don’t know about your physical and mental condition.”
Reines echoed the sentiment, thanking Trump for “daring the mainstream media to cover your health after your tweet” and linking to a New York Times story about criticism of Trump’s health circulating on social media.
“Trump’s inability to ever let anything go is a major political weakness,” tweeted liberal columnist Jonathan Alter. “That’s why constant ridicule is such an important tactic for Democrats and independents trying to save our country from this beast.”
