Trump's Staffers Can't Keep Up With A President Who Keeps Forgetting Things

A president who once built his brand on knowing every deal, every name, and every angle now needs aides to Google the people he wants prosecuted.

"I remember there was this lawyer who was in the administration who said the election was fair and there's no fraud. Who was he?"

— President Donald Trump, during a meeting with Stephen Miller and Boris Epshteyn, as recounted in Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

On Friday morning, June 20, Donald Trump stood beside the most luxurious airplane in the world. He had just finished praising its craftsmanship to a crowd of service members at Joint Base Andrews. The Boeing 747, gifted by Qatar's royal family and now serving as Air Force One, was everything he claimed it would be: gold-trimmed, impossibly large, and completely free.

When his speech ended, the president turned away from the designated exit and walked in the opposite direction. He appeared unsure where to go. An aide stepped into the frame and pointed him toward the correct staircase. Trump changed direction and left the stage.

The video went viral within minutes. Social media users called it "Gramps is a little overwhelmed." Another suggested getting him a leash.

This was not an isolated incident. It was the latest in a string of public moments that have reignited speculation about the 80-year-old president's cognitive health, fueled by reporting from multiple outlets and documented in a forthcoming book by two of the most respected political journalists in Washington.

The Haberman-Swan book, Regime Change, drops on July 14. CNN obtained an advance copy and has been publishing excerpts over the past week. What emerged was not just one or two forgettable moments but a pattern of lapses that staff members found increasingly difficult to manage.

In one scene, Trump sat with his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and personal lawyer Boris Epshteyn, brooding over grievances from his first term. He knew he wanted revenge on someone who had publicly defended the 2020 election's integrity. What he could not do was remember that person's name.

"I remember there was this lawyer who was in the administration who said the election was fair and there's no fraud. Who was he?" Trump asked.

Miller, who has long served as the White House's chief scorekeeper of grudges, could not help. "Oh the DHS. I think you're talking about the DHS guy. I forget his name."

Epshteyn pulled out his phone and Googled. The answer was Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, who had declared the 2020 election "the most secure in American history" before Trump fired him for it.

"Yeah, Chris Krebs," Trump said. "Whatever happened to him? He was a bad one. Take a look at him."

Days later, the White House issued an executive order directing the Justice Department and Homeland Security to investigate Krebs.

Translation: the man who built his political identity on personal vendettas now needs his lawyers to run internet searches to remember who he is mad at.

The book documents other lapses. Trump has forgotten how old the United States is. He has forgotten the name of a world leader he was introducing and showering with compliments. He has forgotten the name of the Pacific Ocean. Each incident was initially dismissed as a one-off gaffe, but together they form a pattern that neither the White House nor his defenders can explain away.

Then came Father's Day weekend. On June 20, Trump posted on Truth Social what appeared to be a tribute to his daughter. The caption read: "Great daughter. My Honor!!! President DJT."

The photo showed Margo Catsimatidis, the wife of billionaire Trump ally John Catsimatidis. Online sleuths traced the image to Camp David during the Clinton administration. Neither Ivanka nor Tiffany Trump appeared in the picture.

"He thinks this is Tiffany. Bank on it. America needs to have a family meeting with grandpa," Canadian podcaster Chris LaBossiere wrote on X.

Political analyst Arieh Kovler wondered why the president would be "scanning photos of Camp David from the 1990s with random blonde women" and theorized that Trump must have instructed a staffer to post it and nobody had the nerve to correct him.

Another X user summarized it more bluntly: "Nothing to see here. Just the President of the United States actively sundowning in real time for the entire world to see."

The posting itself was part of a broader pattern of erratic behavior. The Daily Beast calculated that Trump posted 861 times in May alone, averaging 27 posts per day. That is roughly one post every hour of every day. In June, he kicked off the month with 47 posts in a 31-minute period.

The posts have ranged from AI-generated memes to meltdowns about his war in Iran to a picture of himself lounging shirtless in a pool floatie in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. On Saturday morning, while Iran announced it was closing the Strait of Hormuz and accusing the United States of violating their ceasefire agreement, Trump posted a poll asking his followers which spelling he should use for a derogatory nickname for Democrats: "Dumocrat" or "Dumbocrat."

He explained his reasoning at length. "In one case, you simply exchange the 'e' for 'u,' so simple and precise (Many people don't know, or assume, that DUMB ends in 'b')." He ended the post with his now-familiar sign-off: "Thank you for your attention to this very important matter! President DJT."

The contrast between the gravity of the moment and the content of the post was staggering. The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly one-fifth of the world's oil supply. Its closure sent fuel prices soaring globally. And the president's response was to crowdsource a spelling decision.

Even within his own administration, the mood is shifting. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whom Trump handpicked and who has publicly defended the president's economic policies, privately compared his boss to George Soros.

"They are the same animal," Bessent told associates, according to the Haberman-Swan book.

The irony was not lost on anyone who knows Bessent's history. He worked for Soros Fund Management twice over his career. He helped "break" the Bank of England while managing the fund's London office. He earned the Soros Fund $1.2 billion betting against the Japanese yen. The man Trump has spent years demonizing as a conspiracy theorist's boogeyman was, for two stretches, Bessent's actual employer.

The comparison suggests something deeper than policy disagreement. It suggests that the people closest to the president understand him in ways they would never say publicly.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment on any of these incidents. There has been no updated medical evaluation released to the public since Trump's second inauguration. The 25th Amendment remains a topic discussed in hushed tones among lawmakers who fear the political consequences of raising it.

What makes this moment different from previous concerns about presidential health is the visibility. In earlier eras, cognitive decline was managed behind closed doors. Staffers filtered messages, aides anticipated questions, and the public saw only the curated version. Trump runs his own communications. He posts directly from his phone at all hours. There is no filter between the president's confusion and 100 million Truth Social users.

The daughter photo was not a staffer's mistake. It was the president's own account. The poll about spelling "dumb" was not a speechwriter's draft. It was his words, posted while the Strait of Hormuz closed.

Every administration has moments of embarrassment. What distinguishes this one is that the embarrassment is coming from the top, in real time, and at an accelerating pace. The president who once claimed he could remember every deal he ever made now needs his lawyers to Google the names of his enemies. The president who brags about his mental sharpness walks in the wrong direction after a speech and requires an aide to redirect him.

The question is no longer whether something is happening. The question is what happens when the person in charge cannot remember the things that matter.