Donald Trump’s answer to a question about child-care costs last month was eye-opening — not because of what it said about his agenda if he were to return to the Oval Office but what it said about his ability to do the job.

Asked at an economic forum in New York what specific legislation he would back to make child care more affordable, Trump rambled incomprehensibly for nearly two minutes without answering the question.

“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down,” Trump said. “You know, I was somebody — we had, Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka, was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about — that, because look, child care is child care, couldn’t — you know, there’s something — you have to have it in this country. You have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers, compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to.”

The rest of his answer provided no clarification about a connection between import tariffs — if that is what Trump was referencing — and child-care costs. The lack of context, or even complete sentences, made his comments as clear as mud.

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But what was crystal clear was the decline in the former president’s ability to hold a train of thought, speak coherently, or demonstrate a command of the English language, to say nothing of policy.

President Biden, after struggling with his answers during a June debate with Trump, ended his bid for a second term in July. That decision came after Democrats publicly voiced concern about Biden’s cognitive fitness and the press pursued the controversy breathlessly for weeks. Editorial boards, including the Globe’s, had even urged Biden to step aside.

Yet neither the media nor Republicans have shown that kind of urgency as Trump has repeatedly shown himself to be, to put it kindly, unwell. That is not only unfair and irresponsible, it is dangerous for the future of our country.

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The next president will enter the Oval Office at a time of immense challenges: an economy on the upswing but still hamstrung by persistent inflation; the ongoing domestic threat of home-grown radicalized terrorism; a surge in racist, antisemitic, and Islamophobic hate crimes and bias incidents across the nation; expanding conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine; and the ongoing global threat of political and election interference by China, Iran, and Russia, just to highlight a few.

The next president must be sharp and nimble in confronting those perils. Trump’s decision to halt an Oaks, Pa., town hall last week after two attendees needed medical attention and then convert the event to an impromptu dance party, dancing awkwardly to the tunes of the Village People and Barbra Streisand for over a half hour instead of answering voters’ questions, does not a paint a picture of a man up for the task of being commander-in-chief.

Trump and his campaign seem to be aware of his addled appearance. He canceled several interviews in recent days. At a rally last month in Johnstown, Pa., Trump tried to pass off his meandering verbal style as an intentional strategy called “the weave.”

“Friends of mine that are like English professors, they say: ‘It’s the most brilliant thing they’ve ever seen,’ ” Trump said. News flash: That’s a lie too.

I’m not a doctor, but in a report for STAT, several cognitive experts who have studied Trump’s speaking patterns over the course of several years say his disjointed way of jumping from one subject to another — called tangentiality — and his increasing reliance on superlatives and absolute terms are consistent with several causes of cognitive decline.

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Though cautioning that they could not diagnose Trump without examining him, experts said his speech patterns match those of people experiencing the effects of things like mood changes, aging, and dementia.

“There’s reasonable evidence suggestive of forms of dementia,” clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis told STAT. “The reduction in complexity of sentences and vocabulary does lead you to a certain picture of cognitive diminishment.”

Yet Trump’s party has not urged him to step aside for the good of the country, as Biden’s did. And much of the press is doing the American people a disservice by treating Trump’s obvious cognitive slippage as just “Trump being Trump.”

Yes, the press has a lot to wrestle with when it comes to Trump, including his embrace of authoritarian strongmen, his refusal to vow to accept the election results, his criminal conviction and civil judgments for fraud and sexual abuse, and his racism and disparagement of women, LGBTQ people, and immigrants.

But his diminishing cognitive ability can’t be ignored. He may not be able to get a grip, but it’s long past time the news media and Republicans stop participating in the gaslighting. We can see reality with our own eyes.

Kimberly Atkins Stohr is a columnist for the Globe. She may be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @KimberlyEAtkins.