Trump Insists He’s Not Old and Confused, We Just Don’t Get Sarcasm

Photo: Mark Makela/Getty Images

Which candidate is more addled: the 81-year-old current president, who is a self-described “gaffe machine,” or the 78-year-old former president known for his incoherent rants? It seems increasingly likely that this is going to be the defining question of the 2024 presidential election.

In recent months, Donald Trump has amplified concerns among the general public about Joe Biden’s age, saying he’s “cognitively impaired” and “in no condition to lead” (in addition to being “totally corrupt and the worst president in the history of our country”). But whenever commentators note that Trump is less than four years younger than Biden (he’ll turn 78 a few months before Election Day) and makes plenty of gaffes too, the former president becomes highly offended. This fall, he posted several Truth Social diatribes defending his “mentality,” and on Monday morning he debuted a new argument: The problem is actually our failure to understand sarcasm.

It is true that Trump has been experimenting with a right-wing conspiracy theory that claims Barack Obama is essentially still president, with a puppetlike Biden taking orders from his “boss” (maybe via an earpiece).

But Trump’s defense here doesn’t make sense for several reasons. First, the “cognitive test” Trump “ACED,” which he has bragged about repeatedly, was actually a simple dementia screening. And Trump’s latest doctor’s note reported he’s in “excellent” health without reporting which specific tests he’s taken recently.

Second, as Forbes reported, Trump has mixed up his two nemeses at least seven times in recent months. In some of these examples, swapping Biden for Obama doesn’t make Trump’s remarks clearer, as in this clip where he mistakenly says he beat Obama in 2016 before catching himself and saying he defeated Hillary Clinton:

Many of Trump’s recent gaffes don’t involve either of his predecessors. As you can see in this X thread posted by the DeSantis campaign (which may have partially inspired Trump’s complaint today), Trump has also mixed up Kristi Noem and Nikki Haley; George W. Bush and Jeb Bush; JFK Jr. and RFK Jr.; and World War I and World War II. Trump is unfit for a second term primarily because of his policies, not these flubs, but they do show the problem isn’t just misunderstood sarcasm.

Finally, it’s never a good sign when you have to explain why your joke was funny. If most people didn’t realize that Trump was making a sarcastic reference to his bizarre new Obama conspiracy theory, maybe the problem is him, not his audience.