President Trump’s Uneven National Anthem Performance Fuels Dementia Fears

All eyes were on Donald Trump at Monday night’s College Football National Championship game, and many noticed his hesitant rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” President Trump‘s mental state has already been called into question, and the bad lip sync has been identified by some as proof that the president’s mental health is deteriorating.

The president mouthed along to the first few lines of the national anthem with no issues. After a while, however, he appeared to lose track of the words, and began singing random words, with no concept of the song’s tune. At one point, he even took a sidelong glance at the camera trained on him, perhaps aware of his mistakes.

At first, the president’s detractors took to Twitter, gleefully suggesting that he didn’t know the words to the song at all. However, before long, the subject turned to his age and his reported forgetfulness.

President Trump is the oldest person to be elected president in U.S. history, and his memory has often been called into question. The recent release of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff only worsened those concerns, with Wolff’s reports from inside the West Wing adding up to the conclusion that Donald Trump is suffering from some form of dementia.

The White House has vehemently denied these claims, and the president took to Twitter to personally defend his mental health in a string of now infamous tweets. Nevertheless, the slack-jawed national anthem performance on Monday night was a bad look. People who oppose President Trump were obviously quick to point out the error, but after a while, even his supporters began sadly noting that he looked out of sorts.