One of the truisms of Trump World is that being viewed as boring is a sin deadlier than being wrong.

On the campaign trail, former President Donald Trump often takes that to mean he must go off-script and veer off message.

His critics say such detours are a troubling sign of his incoherence and raise questions about his age and cognitive health. Many of his supporters and allies see his circular way of speaking, which he calls “the weave,” as entertaining and not alarming. The partisan debate over the implications of Trump’s meandering speech has only intensified in the final stage of the race.

Here are some examples of Trump’s rambling from this past week.

Schoolchildren asked him about boyhood heroes. He ended up at the border wall.

It was a softball question. Trump’s response was more of a knuckleball. A group of children asked Trump questions Friday on “Fox & Friends.” Asked to name his favorite president when he was a child, Trump at first cited one who was elected when he was 34. Then he ventured onto surprising terrain, including every child’s favorite subject, the revised NAFTA trade deal known as the United States- Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Daniel: President Trump, I’m Daniel. And I’m 10. And I’m from Tennessee. What was your favorite president when you were little?

Trump: So I liked Ronald Reagan. I thought he was, um, look — I did not love his trade policy. I’m a very good trade — I have made some great trade deals for us — the USMCA. That wasn’t his strength, but he had a great dignity about him, Ronald Reagan. You could say “There’s our president” more than any of the others. Really, any of the others. Uh, great presidents — well, Lincoln was probably a great president. Although I’ve always said, why wasn’t that settled? You know? I’m a guy that — it doesn’t make sense we had a civil war.

Brian Kilmeade, “Fox & Friends” co-host: Well, half the country left before he got there.

Trump: Yeah, yeah. But you’d almost say, like, why wasn’t that — as an example, Ukraine would have never happened and Russia if I were president. Israel would have never happened. Oct. 7 would have never happened. As you know, Iran was broke, they wanted to make a deal. I told, “Anybody buys any oil from Iran, it’s, you’re, you’re finished, you know, you can’t deal with the United States.” Nobody was buying oil from Iran. They came, they wanted to make a deal — now they have $300 billion in cash. Biden has been — and her, she’s, I don’t know if she was involved in it, but she’s, she’s terrible. Hey, look, remember this, she was the border czar, she never went there.

Asked about inflation, he roamed to his annoyance with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s college experience.

On Tuesday, John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, asked Trump about the dollar and whether his policies would drive up inflation. Trump produced a verbal novel, the first chapter of which touched more on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s undergraduate studies than on macroeconomics.

Trump: Yeah, I had four years no inflation. I had four years no inflation. I had four years. It’s better than that. And Biden, who has no idea where the hell he is, OK? Biden went two years with no inflation because he inherited from me.

And then they started spending money like drunken sailors. They spent so much money. It was so ridiculous, the money they were spending. They were spending on the Green New Scam, a Green New Scam, the Green New Deal. You know, it was conceived of by AOC, plus three. She never even studied the environment in college. She went to a nice college. She came out. She just said — the Green New Scam. She just named all these things.

Asked about climate change, he drifted to his golf course and then to World War III.

At a Univision town hall Wednesday, a voter asked Trump whether, given the mounting evidence of climate change, he still believed it was a hoax. He started to boast about his administration’s climate record, but then he took a few detours.

Trump: We went into rural parts of the country and fixed people’s water. They were drinking such terrible water. We were — it was very important to me. All of that’s important. At the same time, you can’t give up your country. You can’t say that we’re not going to have any jobs anymore. If they said — if they took their ultimate, which is $93 trillion, the Green New Deal, $93 trillion, that’s more money than we would have in 20 years. We wouldn’t be able to survive. We wouldn’t be able to live.

So I always feel that with the climate, and I have been a great — I have been an environmentalist. I built many things. I own Doral right next door, and we did that in a very environment. I get awards, environmental awards for the way I built it, for the water, the way I use the water, the sand, the mixing of the sand and the water. I mean, many different — but I’ve had many awards over the years for environmental, the way I’ve built. Because you know about building, that’s what you do. It’s very important to me. At the same time, we can’t destroy our country and we’re competing against countries that don’t spend anything on climate change, like China and others. And they’re able to make their product for tremendously less than us and we’re not going to let that happen either. We have to have a strong — a strong country and we have to have a nice climate. And there’s nobody better at that, I think, at that combination than me.

I will say this, though, I hear a lot about climate and they talk about global warming, et cetera, et cetera, because they now — they used to call it global warming, now they call it climate change because that covers everything but global warming. The real global warming that we have to worry about is nuclear. The water’s coming up an eighth of an inch, over 300 years, the ocean is going to rise. And, you know, nobody knows if that’s true or not, but they’re worried about the ocean rising an eighth of an inch or a quarter of an inch in 300 years.

What I’m worried about is nuclear weapons tomorrow because the power of nuclear weapons, and we’re going to end up with this administration, if she gets in, we will end up in a third world war. She’s grossly incompetent. And if she gets in, Kamala, if she gets in, we’re going to end up in a third world war. And with me, you’ll never end up in even a war. So we have to be very careful. Thank you very much.