MS NOW anchor Katy Tur surprised many on Wednesday when she defended President Donald Trump against a New York Times report claiming the 79-year-old commander in chief is displaying “signs of fatigue.” The Times piece suggested Trump’s schedule has shortened, his public events have decreased, his speeches have become “rambling,” and he has appeared to nod off during meetings. The article triggered a fiery response from Trump, who blasted the paper and its reporter while noting he had recently “aced” a “PERFECT PHYSICAL EXAM AND A COMPREHENSIVE COGNITIVE TEST.”
Speaking on The Daily Beast’s podcast, Tur said she has noticed changes in Trump’s demeanor during his second term — but still argued he remains far more present and active than his predecessor, Joe Biden. Tur said Trump is “different than he was,” acknowledging that his speech is “slower,” that his energy level is not the same as in past years, and that “you can see him falling asleep sometimes, or appearing to fall asleep in the Oval Office.” She emphasized, however, that Trump has always had long, wandering speaking patterns, and that while some of the Times’ claims may hold “validity,” they don’t tell the full story.
When host Joanna Coles asked, “Is Trump the new Biden?” Tur pushed back.
“I’m not a doctor,” Tur said, but she acknowledged that the comparison is becoming a “bubbling” narrative in media circles. She even referenced comedian Shane Gillis’s recent joke that Trump has “Biden Brain.” Tur then clarified that she does not believe the comparison is accurate.
“He is doing much more than certainly Joe Biden did,” Tur said. “He is out there in a way that past presidents haven’t even been out there. He does give access. He’s constantly on television.”
Tur went on to list Trump’s workload, noting that despite his age, he maintains a pace no recent president besides Trump himself has matched. “He might be slowing down for him and slowing down because he’s getting up there in age,” she said, “but he is still very much mobile. I mean, he’s doing overseas travel. He’s coming back, he’s handing out Halloween candy. Sometimes these trips are one day. I mean, he is very much still engaged.”
Tur did admit Trump is no longer doing the massive rallies that defined his first term and the 2016 and 2020 campaigns. “He’s not standing in front of a crowd for an hour or two hours, three hours in, you know, Grand Rapids, Michigan, any longer,” she said, calling that shift “telling.” But she emphasized that any alleged slowdown must be judged “relative to him and not necessarily relative to Joe Biden.”
To drive the distinction home, Tur recounted her personal experience covering Biden. “I went to the Christmas party, during the Biden years,” she said. “He came out at like 8 p.m. and he gave a speech to the assembled room of journalists and you could not understand a word he was saying.”
“It’s different,” Tur concluded, referring to Trump.
Her comments underscore a broader reality that even many in the media cannot ignore: while Trump is nearly the same age Biden was in 2021, he remains visibly sharper, more active, and more present. And even as the Times attempts to build its “Trump is too old” narrative, journalists like Tur concede that Biden’s cognitive decline was obvious, while Trump’s alleged fatigue is—at most—relative to his once superhuman energy level, not a sign of incapacity.
Her unexpected defense only highlights the widening gap between media narratives and reality as voters judge for themselves which leader still shows up and engages with the country.
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