Did Donald Trump have a stroke? His new lisp and slurred speech, explained

In retrospect, we should have predicted that the much-hyped interview between Donald Trump and Elon Musk would be a non-event, with Musk playing the fawning yes-man to Trump’s nonsensical blather. And, for a while, it seemed the only major news story arising from it would be the humiliating sight of Musk’s X Spaces immediately collapsing under the traffic.

But, after 40 minutes of brain-numbing muzak, this great meeting of the minds finally commenced. Trump’s statements — apart from his unexpected assertion that Kamala was “beautiful” and him comparing her to Melania — were boilerplate campaign speeches. But for many it was a curious way he said them that’s raised eyebrows.

A thpeech impediment?

Throughout the interview, Trump had a strong lisp and his speech was slurred. Veteran voice actor Billy West (Fry on Futurama), who knows more about the particulars of speech than most, dismissed claims that this could be a case of loose dentures, saying that it sounds like Trump may be suffering from “certain types of brain damage or stroke.”

Trump has been suspiciously light on campaigning compared to previous presidential runs and last week took an uncharacteristic week away from his adoring fans. Trump is 78, so it wouldn’t be particularly uncommon for a man of his age to suffer a stroke. And, given that his campaign put so much focus on Joe Biden being too old and infirm to be president, it’d put them in an awkward position if Trump was even slightly incapacitated.

Skeptics might point to the fact that Trump continues to work to a busy schedule and certainly doesn’t appear to be suffering a medical episode, but it’s common to have a “silent stroke” or ministroke and display symptoms so minor you can be unaware it’s happened. And, after a peek at MedicalNewsToday, common symptoms include slurred speech.

Just a tech glitch?

Trump’s defenders were quick to blame Elon Musk. According to them, the shift in Trump’s voice is either due to X’s audio compression mangling the feed or potentially due to the type of lapel-mounted microphone he was using. We will concede that it’s plausible that Musk would be responsible for a glaring technical oversight in one of his products. Even so, if this were the case, we imagine Trump isn’t best pleased that Musk’s inept tech has everyone theorizing he might have brain damage.

Trump is constantly in the public eye so if he is slurring his speech more than normal and lisping everybody is going to notice soon enough. If so, Trump’s attacks on Joe Biden’s age and health making him unable to be president will come back to haunt him in a big way.