Cognitive Decline? Trump Is Now Making up Protests in His Support
Donald Trump claimed protests broke out in Harlem, New York, to support his crackdown on Harvard.

Donald Trump gave a completely incoherent response to a question about his crackdown on Harvard University and ended up ranting about fictional riots.
During a phone interview with NewsNation Wednesday, Stephen A. Smith, the firebrand sports pundit turned political commentator, asked the president to expand on a comment he’d made about Harvard University, which has seen $2.2 billion in government grants frozen by the current administration.
Smith asked Trump what he would say to those who view his attacks against the Ivy League school as “an attack on academic freedom, rather than a defense of fairness.”
“Well, I say this. We had riots in Harlem, in Harlem, and frankly if you look at what’s gone on—and people from Harlem went up and they protested, Stephen, and they protested very strongly against Harvard. They happened to be on my side,” Trump said.
“You know I got a very high Black vote. You know that? Very, very high Black vote. It was a very great compliment to me,” Trump continued.
The president appeared confused about the subject of the question, ranting about Harlem instead of Harvard and inventing a fictional riot in support of his war on higher education.
asked by Stephen A. Smith about his Harvard shakedown, Trump starts ranting about Harlem and says "I got a very high Black vote" pic.twitter.com/ZoKFaAx7xs
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 1, 2025
Trump’s stumped response is particularly disturbing because, crucially, Smith repeated the word “Harvard” three times in asking his question, and was responding directly to something Trump had just mentioned. Halfway through the question, Trump seemed to realize his mistake, but then felt it necessary to comment on the support of Black voters, which was at that point entirely off topic.
There have been concerns over Trump’s cognitive decline since he first started to deliver weaving, nonsensical stump speeches on the presidential campaign trail. Now his divorce from reality manifests mostly in his disastrous economic policy, as the president is more or less kept away from making lengthy addresses.
During an interview on ABC News Tuesday, Trump appeared to suggest that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man wrongfully deported to El Salvador, literally had “MS-13” tattooed on his hand. In reality, Trump had seen an image with these letters and numbers digitally added as a visual aid to the tattoos the government claimed proved his gang affiliation.
More than 80 professors at Harvard have pledged 10 percent of their salaries to help pay for the school’s legal battle against the Trump administration. In addition to the $2.2. billion in grants, and the cancellation of a $60 million contract, the White House also plans to pull $1 billion in federal funding for Harvard’s health research, which could potentially devastate Boston’s hospitals.