Former allies and cabinet members of former President Donald Trump are raising alarms about his fitness for office due to his age and mental acuity, with periods of confusion and incomprehensible commentary adding to the concerns. Yet print coverage of the issue -- even in the last month of this high-stakes election -- has not reached the fever pitch that it did for President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.

Coverage of Biden’s age or mental acuity peaked in February following the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified documents. One line of the 388-page document speculated that Biden could present himself at a hypothetical trial as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Articles about Biden's age or mental acuity spiked that month to 65. Trump has not had a single month when he received even close to that level of attention despite repeated warning signs. Despite the rash of news recently, as of October 15 there have only been 11 articles in this last full month of the election cycle about Trump's age or mental acuity. 

It was recently reported that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a staunch ally of the former president, said his behavior was “becoming more erratic.” Similarly, Gen. Mark Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, has discussed Trump’s “mental decline” with journalist Bob Woodward. A Trump town hall on October 14 that was supposed to be a “Q&A focused on Trump’s policy platform” turned into a “surreal listening party,” with the former president “swaying along and occasionally punching the air to songs,” leaving some with lingering questions about his mental stamina. And The New York Times recently published a front-page article titled “Trump Reignites Question of Age with Ramblings.”



In a previous study, Media Matters found that from January 15 to June 17, five of the top U.S. newspapers had published nearly 10 times as many articles focused on just Biden’s age or mental acuity as focused on just Trump’s. Now, we’ve found that Trump has still been the focus of much fewer articles about his age or mental fitness than Biden, even over a much longer period. 

Our previous study found that in a roughly five-month period, five of the top U.S. newspapers published 136 articles about Biden’s age or mental acuity. In a follow-up, which extended the period to roughly nine months, we found only 94 articles focused on Trump's age or mental acuity.

In September, Trump confused an Alaskan wildlife refuge with a military air base in Afghanistan. In October, Trump repeatedly called Gov. Janet Mills “he” during a campaign call. Trump has refused to release his medical record. And just recently, Trump urged people to vote on January 5. 

But despite all these blunders, and the comments from Graham and Milley, overall print coverage of Trump’s age or mental acuity each month has never been remotely close to what Biden received in February. 

Articles about Trump’s age or mental acuity per month topped out at 15 in July, largely due to Biden’s performance in their June 27 debate and the resulting questions about whether he’d remain in the race.



Trump has given the press a multitude of reasons to cover his cognitive ability to the same degree they did Biden’s, but so far, they haven’t shown nearly the same appetite.

Media Matters searched print articles in the Factiva database from the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post for either of the terms “Trump” or “former president” within the same headline or lead paragraph as any of the terms “age,” “mental,” “acuity,” “faculty,” “health,” “decline,” “70,” “77,” “78,” “80,” “82,” “70s,” or “80s” or any variations of any of the terms “incoherent,” “sane,” “fit,” “cognitive,” “old,” “elder,” “seventy,” or “eighty” from January 15, 2024, when Iowa held the first primary contest of the 2024 presidential election, through October 15, 2024.



We included articles, which we defined as instances when Trump's age or mental acuity was mentioned in the headline or lead paragraphs in the A section of the paper. We included editorials and op-eds but not letters to the editor.