Donald Trump’s increasingly profane language is a sign of his cognitive decline, one veteran journalist alleges.
Terry Moran, a longtime ABC journalist who was dismissed by the network last year after calling out the “hatred” within top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, told The Daily Beast Podcast host Joanna Coles that the 80-year-old president has increasingly relied on profanity as he has gotten older.
“The president’s potty mouth is...his own liberation,” Moran said.
“We’ve all seen him evolve over time. He’s not as sharp as he used to be on the stump...He had an almost carnivorous sense of where the vulnerabilities and the excitement in the crowd were, and he’d riff, riff them up. And now he droned.”
Moran went on: “I think as a replacement, he’s just cursing...and that’ll get a charge, you know, to say the F word or whatever.”
A spokesperson for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Throughout Trump’s second term, reports have detailed his profane tirades against his own appointees behind closed doors. In public, too, the president has repeatedly unleashed expletive-laden posts on Truth Social.
“The only thing [Iran has] is FAKE NEWS from the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters (now over 100,000 people dead. They must be tried for war crimes against humanity!), and a good line of “bulls--t,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in August. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Trump’s crude language has also featured prominently on the campaign trail ahead of the midterm elections. As he has traversed the country in recent weeks in a last-ditch effort to drum up support for his endorsed candidates, some—including the candidates themselves—have argued that his appearances are doing more harm than good.
The president’s campaign blitz comes amid low approval ratings, voter frustration over the cost of living and high gas prices, and his deeply unpopular war on Iran. His speeches have frequently veered into headline-grabbing outbursts.
At a rally in Nebraska earlier this month, for example, Trump appeared to suggest that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego as a “small price to pay” for keeping the country and the world safe. He later clarified his remarks at a rally in Texas.
Whether Trump helps sink his party in November or not, Moran argued that the cultural shift toward profanity he has fostered will endure.
“He gives permission to people to liberate themselves from the strictures of decency, to become the worst version of themselves. And I think, I mean, I don’t think we’re gonna come back from it for a while,” Moran said.
“I think we are a different country. And I think that potty mouth is his liberation and his temptation,” he continued. “Because the thing about Trumpism, and this is why it’s going to be difficult, once you’ve bought in—it’s hard to get out. Once you’ve accepted this is the standard of our politics, of your own standard as a citizen.”
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