Others' Opinions
Can Trump Actually Read?
The Evidence Tells a Troubling Story…
It sounds absurd to ask whether the sitting President of the United States is literate. Yet after nearly a decade of watching Donald Trump operate in public life and listening to those who worked closest to him, the question has become unavoidable. He can barely read at a basic level. But the growing body of evidence suggests that his reading ability is severely limited, and that he has spent most of his adult life avoiding written material altogether. What we are left with is a picture not of illiteracy in the strictest sense, but of a man who functions at the reading level of someone who struggles with even modest complexity.
Consider first his own words. Trump has bragged openly that he does not read books. In a 2016 interview with The Washington Post, he said, “I never have. I’m always busy doing a lot.” In another interview he declared, “I don’t have time to read.” For most leaders, reading is not optional. It is how they absorb history, policy, and perspective. For Trump, it has always been something to dismiss, even to boast about avoiding.
Those who worked in his White House say the problem went beyond preference. National Security Council staff reported that his daily briefings had to be pared down to one page, often with pictures or charts. He would not engage with anything longer. One former official said bluntly, “The President cannot absorb large amounts of written material. He just won’t do it.” Another noted that Trump would grow visibly impatient if someone tried to read a memo or policy note out loud to him for more than a few minutes.
His public appearances add weight to these accounts. Time and again, Trump has stumbled while reading from a teleprompter or a prepared speech. He slurs words, skips lines, mispronounces common terms, or veers off into rambling tangents. Critics sometimes attribute this to laziness or improvisation. But anyone who has watched closely has seen patterns that suggest genuine difficulty with reading fluently. Even short scripted remarks seem to overwhelm him.
The record of his books is perhaps the most damning evidence. The Art of the Deal, the book that cemented his reputation as a “business genius,” was almost entirely ghostwritten by Tony Schwartz, who later said Trump contributed virtually nothing. Every subsequent Trump book was also ghostwritten. Schwartz has said plainly that Trump “didn’t read drafts, didn’t write anything, and couldn’t focus long enough to review text.” That is not the behavior of a man merely disinterested in books. It is the behavior of someone unable to engage with the written word at all.
Former aides have noted that memos prepared for Trump often came back untouched, with no notes or comments. In contrast, past presidents like Obama, Clinton, and both Bushes were known for detailed annotations and margin notes on policy briefs. Trump left no such trail. If anything, he seemed hostile to the idea of written detail, often demanding verbal summaries or dismissing documents altogether.
Even his legal troubles reveal hints of avoidance. Court documents in which Trump was required to answer written questions often came back with short, vague answers, raising questions about whether he even read them himself. Lawyers frequently spoke for him, suggesting he did not or could not engage directly with the text.
-Brent Molnar
September 15th, 2025
Quora Forum, Voice of Reason