Trump Aging Poorly

He stays up late, phoning lawyers and lawmakers, while posting up to 150 times a night on Truth Social. His mornings involve calls with world leaders about the war in the Middle East, or talks with landscapers about replanting a bothersome tree. When he arrives in the Oval Office, his unstructured days unfold like a time-lapse video, with people zipping around him as he stays seated at the center of the frame. As President Trump turns 80 on Sunday, he is so intent on projecting an image of relentless energy that he has installed a massive, mixed martial arts octagon on the South Lawn to mark the occasion. After watching the fight, Mr. Trump will depart Washington in the middle of the night and cross an ocean for a diplomatic summit in France. It is a schedule that seems devised to ward off questions about age and stamina as he begins his ninth decade. But even for a president known for imposing his own reality on every situation, Mr. Trump is facing scrutiny over his age that has grown more intense with each passing year. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken in February showed that nearly six in 10 Americans think Mr. Trump is growing more erratic. On Monday, Mr. Trump appeared to doze off during a New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden. That episode prompted such intense speculation that James Dolan, a prominent ally and the team’s owner, felt compelled to weigh in publicly, saying the president “was very much awake.” On June 4, during an hourlong appearance in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump leaned to the side in his chair, closing his eyes for a few seconds as Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, spoke about the importance of coal. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/14/us/politics/trump-age-birthday-80.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qFA.6DzW.-4PKy4QUW625&smid=url-share