Google has blocked its AI-powered search tools from providing summarized answers for queries regarding Donald Trump’s mental acuity. This action contrasts with the platform’s handling of similar searches involving President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama.
For the search query “does trump show signs of dementia,” the AI Overviews feature displays a message stating, “An AI Overview is not available for this search.” When this query, along with others concerning Alzheimer’s or senility related to Trump, is entered directly into Google’s AI Mode, the system does not generate a synthesized response. Instead, the search uncharacteristically returns only a standard list of 10 web links, foregoing the expected AI-written explanation.
The search engine’s behavior is inconsistent when different names are used in the query. A search for “does biden show signs of dementia” also does not display an AI Overview on the main results page. However, a key difference emerges when using the dedicated AI Mode for the same question about President Biden, as it does yield a summarized response from the system. This demonstrates a varied application of the AI summary feature depending on the public figure mentioned.
The AI-generated summary for the Biden query begins, “It’s not possible to definitively state whether former President Joe Biden has dementia based solely on publicly available information.” Google also provides AI Overviews for related searches, such as queries about “Biden Alzheimer’s.” In those instances, the system has stated there is “no clinical diagnosis or public proof that former President Joe Biden has Alzheimer’s disease.”
This handling further differs from searches involving other public figures. A query using Barack Obama’s name generates an AI Overview that states, “No public evidence or statements from medical professionals indicate that former President Barack Obama has dementia.” A search about Obama conducted directly within AI Mode produces a similar AI-generated summary, unlike the list of links provided for the Trump-related queries.
