The White House insisted Thursday that Donald Trump's lispy, halting performance Wednesday in an Israel policy speech is nothing to worry about, and a U.S. Navy doctor will release the results of a physical next year to prove it.
The president's speaking cadence became irregular and his speech slurred during part of his delivery, concluding with "God bless the United Shhtates."
"There were a lot of questions on that. Frankly pretty ridiculous questions," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters on Thursday, the Daily Mail reports.
"The president's throat was dry. Nothing more than that."
Sanders took a nothing-to-see-here approach on Thursday, and committed to reporters that Trump will have a full medical exam during "the first part of next year."
She called it "the full physical that most presidents go through."
"That will take place at Walter Reed [National Military Medical Center], and those records will be released by the doctor following that taking place," Sanders said.
"Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough said Thursday on his MSNBC program that dementia was the most likely explanation for Trump's oratory oddity.
Sanders says Trump just had a really dry throat. Photo / Getty Images
Saying he wants "to be very careful" with the charge, Scarborough said he has personal experience with people "who are struggling with certain issues because their personality changes" – namely, his mum.
"Unfortunately in the case of my mother, I can move that to the side and I am totally fine with that," he said.
"In this case, Donald Trump has control of nuclear weapons."
A Virginia board-certified dentist had told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that Trump's suddenly wind-whistled 'S'es and shifting lower jaw as he spoke at the White House indicated a loose denture plate.
"Saliva can get trapped between an upper plate and the palate – or between the lower plate and the lower jaw – and that's what makes the noise," he said, while declining to be identified.
Trump said the United States will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem sometime in the next few years. No other country has its embassy in Jerusalem. Photo / Getty Images
Democratic partisans launched into high gear on Twitter, including some who speculated about every possible cause from a mini-stroke to cocaine use.
Trump last released an abbreviated medical report on September 13, 2016, publishing a one-page letter from his personal physician Harold Bornstein that pronounced him "in excellent physical health."
That was a jab at Hillary Clinton, who two days earlier had collapsed during a 9/11 memorial service in New York City.
A year earlier, as Trump fought his way through a crowded primary field, Bornstein wrote in an even shorter and typo-laden medical synopsis that Trump would be "the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."
"His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary," the doctor said then.
Trump released Bornstein's 2016 assessment during a broadcast of Dr. Mehmet Oz's daytime television show.
At the time, he said that his favorite form of exercise – other than golf – came from giving campaign speeches.
"I am up there using a lot of motion," he told Dr. Oz. "These rooms are hot like saunas. I guess that's a form of exercise."
Oz said then that Trump's various test results, including his blood pressure, EKG and cholesterol readings, "indicate that he's healthy enough to be president."
He also noted that Trump, a confirmed teetotaler, had no history of using alcohol or tobacco.
Most of the less sober theories about Trump's passing speech impediment on Wednesday have come from liberals who seemed to hear what they wanted to hear.
Walter Shaub, an Obama-era former director of the Office of Government Ethics, compared Trump's pronunciation slip with last years's national fascination over Democrat Hillary Clinton's bout with influenza.
"It's amazing that the media ignores the spectacle of POTUS slurring words in a speech, given the frenzy over the health of a rival who proved her stamina doing shuttle diplomacy around the world," Shaub tweeted.
"I don't know how to make sense of it except as evidence of the sexism in politics."
"He couldn't quite control his mouth. Looks stroke-ish, but could be, I dunno, dental?" speculated Salon.com writer Bob Cesca.
Holly O'Reilly, an organiser of the anti-Trump "March for Truth," had her own theory.
"Is Trump using again?" she asked in a tweet. "My mouth used to get dry like this when I was on drugs. Is he having a stroke?"
