I’d really strongly encourage you to watch side-by-side video from 8 years ago. Eg watch the two debates.
Discussion
I watched him on Rogan, Theo Von and listened to his (mostly torturous) live X space with Elon - which was where Elon pitched him cold on Doge, as an aside. All live, unscripted, and extended performances. And just today i watched him speak impressively back in 2016.
I’m well aware, and I see nothing surprising or of particular concern for an almost 80 year old man who appears to be escaping dementia.
I would prefer to save the time, though I understand the relevance here. Do you mean that the so called weave, the tangents, have gotten more prominent?
Or do you really see another notable decline?
Sadly just a lot less overall clarity. Less coherent sentences making substantially less coherent points. People made fun of him eight years ago for this but mostly if you paid attention to politics and the goings-on you knew what he was referencing and he was making coherent arguments (whether you agreed or not). These days it’s much less follow-able.
I can see that, though he might have also just widened his scope a bit to personally less familiar topics during the second run, eg. BTC. The talking points during first run and term seemed pretty narrowly defined.