MS NOW's Joe Scarborough dismissed speculation that Donald Trump is secretly suffering from dementia during Monday's Morning Joe. Scarborough, 63, slammed such conjecture as 'ridiculous' while reacting to a Monday morning article in The Atlantic magazine written by costar Jonathan Lemire. The piece, A Different Kind of Fading, noted how President Joe Biden's demeanor has grown 'quieter' in recent years 'while Donald Trump grows even louder.' 'It’s ridiculous, I said the same thing about Joe Biden,' Scarborough said, arguing that 'any suggestion that Donald Trump has dementia' would be dishonest and willfully ignore the president's past behavior. 'Trump may be slowing down, but I think what we’re really seeing here, and what I really pulled from your article, is that for the president who’s about to turn 80 this month, this next month, for a president who is always been erratic, as he turns 80, we are seeing some diminished capacities with anybody who would turn 80,' he said. 'But that erraticism, we are seeing it exaggerated.'

Lemire's piece had highlighted concerns about Trump's posts on social media. Differences between his two terms - such as an increase in winding anecdotes from the president and him having 'dramatically scaled back his travel' - were cited. Former Biden Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates spoke to Lemire for the report to maintain that 'the most obvious impact of age on [President Trump] is that he has lost the capacity to pretend he cares about other people.'

Scarborough, during Monday's broadcast, wondered 'if that’s what we're seeing playing out. 'Where he’s just not just saying the quiet part out loud, he’s screaming it,' he said in regard to Trump's recent posts. 'He wants to abandon our Polish allies. He wants to abandon Ukraine as he continues to do. He wants to abandon our German allies. He wants to do everything he can do to help [Russia’s President] Vladimir Putin.' A Kremlin statement during the Trump-Xi summit last week revealed how Putin will visit Chinese leader Xi Jinping on a two-day trip next week. Trump and Putin discussed the war in Iran during a phone call last April. The two drew up a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine that expired last week, after which Russian attacks immediately resumed.

Russia is a well-known partner to Iran. Scarborough, citing Trump's old age, accused him of instead unwittingly playing into Putin's hands. 'What you actually have is a president doing everything that Vladimir Putin would want him to do. Just ask anybody that's been in this field.' 'Vladimir Putin, couldn't call these shots any better himself,' the host continued. 'And so, whatever draws him to Vladimir Putin, whatever drew him to Putin in his 70s, it seems to be even more exaggerated now, as he turns 80.'

While the US has pushed for both sides to come to the negotiating table in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the talks have noticeably stalled since Washington's attention turned to the US-Israeli war on Iran in late February. This comes after Putin showed rare vulnerability last week by downsizing the traditionally grand military parade, blaming potential Ukrainian strikes on Moscow meant to humiliate the Kremlin. On March 9, Putin said that Moscow's proposal to take enriched uranium from Iran to help negotiate a settlement remains on the table.

The White House announced this week that the president will undergo a medical and dental checkup on May 26 - his fourth publicly disclosed doctor’s visit since his second inauguration. Trump, at 78, was the older US president to be sworn in. Biden, 83, was the oldest president ever by the end of his tenure.