What reason causes Trump to rewrite facts in his own tales that aren't true? We've seen this happening so much. Do you think it's confabulation, lying, or both? Confabulation is the spontaneous production of false memories. Confabulation typically occurs due to brain damage or health conditions that affect the brain, such as dementia. Confabulation is different from lying. The person who confabulates has no intent to mislead anyone or give them wrong information, as they are not aware that the information they are giving is false. People with dementia may display several symptoms of confusion or altered perception of reality. Confabulation is an example of this. It occurs when a person with dementia creates new memories of things that never actually happened, or they alter memories of events that occur in their day-to-day life. Confabulation is a symptom linked not only to dementia but also to several other brain illnesses, including Alzheimer’s disease and brain injury. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/confabulation-dementia No one's memory is 100% percent accurate, but some people make many memory errors. They believe in the accuracy of these faulty memories and can be convincing when talking about them. This is what scientists call confabulation. Some brain conditions can cause these errors in memory. Confabulations are usually autobiographical, involving people misremembering their own experiences. Sometimes they place experiences in the wrong time or place. They may wrongly recall other details, large or small. Occasionally confabulations have little basis in reality. Confabulation is caused by brain damage or poor brain function, but researchers are unsure which parts of the brain are at fault. The frontal lobe or the basal forebrain may be involved. Confabulation occurs with several brain disorders. Confabulations can be either provoked or spontaneous. They're provoked if they occur in response to a question. The person may feel compelled to answer even if they don't know what to say. They're spontaneous if they're offered voluntarily. Spontaneous confabulations are usually less believable and might be fantastic or bizarre. Provoked confabulations are common in early Alzheimer's. Spontaneous confabulations can become a serious problem if the person with Alzheimer's acts on their mistaken beliefs. https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-to-know-about-confabulation https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK536961/ Confabulation is sometimes called “honest lying,” because the person doing it genuinely believes what he’s saying, even if it is obviously and patently false. A person confabulates when they are telling completely invented stories that don’t provide them any particular tangible benefit. In other words, it’s not like lying to try and get out of a speeding ticket. Confabulation isn’t misremembering a date or forgetting something. The mistakes of memory we are all subject to become confabulation when people remember false information in vivid detail — detail so vivid and complete that people who don’t know otherwise often believe what they are hearing is true. In older people, confabulation is one of the clearest early signs of dementia. The day you witness someone confabulate is often the day you are forced to admit to yourself that a beloved parent needs help, and that all the little slips and oddities you’ve been seeing can no longer be rationalized away. If you aren’t comfortable with labeling this as dementia, that’s fine. But there is no question that the president — the man tasked with making critical life and death decisions for both the country and the world — is struggling with mathematical concepts, has vivid “memories” that are not rooted in reality and has an increasingly foggy grasp of past events that did happen. That’s not a medical diagnosis. These are facts we can see for ourselves and we all know. https://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2025/08/02/confabulation-dementia-and-trump/
There are so many examples to choose from, but here's a recent example.... Trump claimed the US gave $60m “two weeks ago”. He added: “You really at least want to have somebody say thank you. No other country gave anything. “Nobody acknowledged it, nobody talks about it and it makes you feel a little bad when you do that and you know you have other countries not giving anything, none of the European countries by the way gave – I mean nobody gave but us.” Trump seemed to not realize or remember that other countries have given money to Gaza – the UK announced a £60m ($80m) package in July, and the European Union has allocated €170m ($195m) in aid. And the Guardian could not find any record of the US giving $60m to Gaza two weeks ago. In June, the US state department approved a $30m grant to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a group backed by Israeli and US interests which has been criticized by Democrats as “connected to deadly violence against starving people seeking food in Gaza”. The White House did not respond to questions about Trump’s claimed $60m donation. Segal said another characteristic of Trump’s questionable mental acuity is confabulation. “It’s where he takes an idea or something that’s happened and he adds to it things that have not happened.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/03/donald-trump-mental-fitness
although he does make up stories like how his uncle taught the Unabomber which one might conclude is him confabulating, he’s also a pathological liar with a low IQ so he lies constantly about everything and the lies are always extra stupid like his uncle telling him about how he taught the Unabomber even tho his uncle died over a decade before the Unabomber’s identity was ever discovered, nor did he ever attend the college his uncle taught at
I think you guys are over analyzing this he’s a salesman. it’s his job to push his agenda forward, and so far he has been successful to an all time historic level. Whether it is straight up lying or grossly reframing the status quo. It works, therefore he keeps doing it.
Generally curious… do you think your IQ is higher than an Ivy League graduate who has had huge successes in careers in real estate, TV, and politics… and who is a multi-billionaire? How do you stack up, amigo? GOOD DAY
Trump is not a Truth Teller. Trump is just selling his version of the "truth". Just looking at videos from 2015 to now, one can easily tell that Trump has lost his fastball. His mind no longer works as well as it did. This happens when people get older. Is it dementia? Maybe, but does it really matter? Results are the same.
This, I don't think it ultimately matters why. I will say that this idea that he is some low IQ ingrate is false. He knows what he is doing - he has studied ways to manipulate and incite people for 45 years or longer and he clearly is very gifted at it. It is very clear that he has studied the tactics/history of people like Huey Long, Harry Truman, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, George Wallace and Silvio Burlusconi.
I’m not sure he’s studied anything. I think he is a natural. It’s just who he is. Salesman. Flimflam artist. Con man. Whatever you want to call it. He is good at it.
Agree with what seems to be the coalescing consensus here -- he's just lying. Has always done so since at least 2016, but I'm sure people who bothered to look would see it going back to the 1970s or earlier. If you're hoping its evidence of creeping dementia that will save us from this presidency, go ahead and stop hoping. He has been making crap up for far too long for it to be a dementia symptom.
There is definitely a lot of truth to this, but we know that he has studied Hitler and I have seen a few mentions from those around him mentioning him being fascinated with other noted populists. What sticks out to me the most was actually Steve Bannon talking about the first two times he met Donald Trump, and how Trump was not viewed as remotely a serious political mover - but that after meeting with Trump that he concluded that he was a natural for being a nativist populist and that Trump did not fully understand how talented he was for that particular niche.
He definitely knows how to manipulate people. But if his daddy hadn't given him $400,000,000 he wouldn't be rich at all today as the power he yields over people is a direct result of his money and the lawyers he can buy. Many people who've been close to him have said that he cannot read very well, and Epstein called him "functionally Illiterate."
Trump is intellectually lazy and willfully ignorant - he doesn't care about anything but getting what he wants, but he is incredibly good at that. He also loves chaos for the purpose of chaos. He goes out of his way to ensure that there is chaos around him at all times, as my guess is that it makes it easier to do and get whatever he wants.
I think that undersells him. Trump isn't the first nepo baby, and the overwhelming majority of them have ever wielded the power or influence that Trump does. He clearly is an extremely flawed man and has his issues - but he has extraordinary gifts as well. As for Epstein, he is another guy that academically was not brilliant, certainly not to the extent that he led people to believe. A lot of the same comments people make about Trump were made about Josef Stalin, and I guess my response would be that the tool box needed to make an effective populist politician or dictator, is not the same as that needed to be a brilliant scientist or academic. Having said that, I believe that people like Stalin and Long and Trump are actually quite bright in their own ways.
He absolutely, totally, shot a round of 67 at Bedminster yesterday. Rick Reilly has a great article from a few years ago about playing golf with Trump.
I also disagree with the widespread claims that Trump isn't smart--I don't think one can get elected twice for president and basically remake an entire political party in his own image without having some intelligence. This is not to disagree with the claim that Trump is intellectually lazy, I think he's got a kind of political street smarts that doesn't come from book learning. He is definitely a unique individual.
Exactly, and I am not sure why so many from the left are so adamant that Trump isn't smart or intelligent. He is clearly bright IMO, and a visionary. This isn't new though - Hitler and Stalin both were labeled as ignorant low IQ individuals that were not capable of basic tasks, yet they were the most important political figures of the 20th century. The right used to label Ho Chi Minh as this idealistic moron, and anyone that has read his writings translated without bias will conclude that he is very aware and bright. Same with Muammar Gaddafi, who is probably one of the most clever people I have studied. In a nutshell, it is very foolish to under-estimate these people, those with the talents of Trump.
It's a damn shame we never got to see a Trump vs Kim Jong-Il showdown on the links: Kim shot 38 under, including 11 holes-in-one, at the 7,700-yard championship course at Pyongyang in the VERY FIRST golf round of his life, according to North Korean state media. https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/index/_/id/7369649
the lengths y’all will go to to try and make Trump seem like he’s smart or bright be for real What is this? “The statement of Robert E. Lee―who’s no longer in favor, did you ever notice that?” Trump continued. “No longer in favor―‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill. He said, ‘Wow, that was a big mistake.’ He lost his great general, and they were fighting. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys!’ But it was too late.” As he spoke further, Trump even drew confused looks from his audience of supporters. “The statement of Robert E. Lee―who’s no longer in favor, did you ever notice that?” Trump continued. “No longer in favor―‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill. He said, ‘Wow, that was a big mistake.’ He lost his great general, and they were fighting. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys!’ But it was too late.” Or this? “So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that, too. It sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning.” Or this? What was smart about him telling people that we wouldn’t pay the tariff? He says dumb sh*t, and then the dumbest among us eat it up and vote against their own self interests…we had countless people not knowing that tariffs would raise prices confusing being a charismatic pathological lier and conman with no shame or morals with being smart…he is “smart” at manipulating and controlling a certain type of person
