Whether it’s due to slurred speech, erratic tweets or quotes from inside sources, Trump’s mental state has been questioned by professionals left and right.
Politico reported Wednesday that in December, over a dozen members of Congress summoned Yale University psychiatry professor Dr. Bandy X. Lee for a two-day briefing.
Lee’s diagnosis? “He’s going to unravel, and we are seeing the signs.”
In an interview, Lee, the editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” pointed Politico to Trump’s talk of conspiracy theories, denial of “things he has admitted before” and “the rush of tweeting [which we feel] is an indication of his falling apart under stress.”
“Trump is going to get worse and will become uncontainable with the pressures of the presidency,” Lee concluded.
Also on Wednesday, excerpts from Michael Wolff’s now-available “Fire and Fury: Inside Trump White House” released detailed scrutiny of the president’s mental state based off interviews with presidential staff.
The supposed work of non-fiction, which The Guardian compares to the “burn book” in “Mean Girls,” discusses Trump’s “increasing pace of repetitions” and his inability to recognize faces.
In a piece Wolff wrote for The Hollywood Reporter about the making of “Fire and Fury,” he stated that Trump “was, in words used by almost every member of the senior staff on repeated occasions, ‘like a child.'”
The book, which has already been named #1 Best Seller by Amazon and also includes disparaging comments from former strategist Stephen Bannon, was dismissed by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders as misleading and false. She denied that Wolff had any conversations with the president — and so did Trump himself, claiming in a tweet that he gave Wolff “zero access” to the White House.
Asked about claims Trump doesn’t like to read, not fit to be POTUS, Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Fox: “It’s absolutely outrageous to make these types of accusations and it’s simply untrue and it’s sad that people are going and making these desperate attempts to attack the president” pic.twitter.com/ro7WpKGAOf
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) January 5, 2018
Sanders further spoke during “Fox & Friends” on Friday saying, “I think it’s absolutely insane to think all of these individuals, reporters and others, who all of a sudden have a medical degree and think that they can diagnose somebody, many times that they’ve never even had a conversation with.”
“It’s absolutely outrageous to make these types of accusations, and it’s simply untrue, and it’s sad that people are going and making these desperate attempts to attack the president,” Sanders continued. “What I think is really mentally unstable is people that don’t see the positive impact that this president is having on the country.”
Sanders went on to cite this impact: “The economy is booming, we’re crushing ISIS, day after day things are getting better for Americans all over this country. And I think it’s really sad that these people don’t see that, and that they’re not celebrating and trying to join in the president’s efforts to turn our country around.”
According to Real Clear Politics’ average of recent polls, after a year of Trump’s presidency, 59.7 percent of Americans feel the country is on the “wrong track,” while 32.2 percent feel it is moving in the “right direction,” Daily Wire reported.
On Thursday, Sanders told reporters that questioning Trump’s mental state was “disgraceful” and “laughable,” stating, “if he was unfit, he probably wouldn’t be sitting there.”
Sanders calls suggestions that Trump is mentally unfit to serve “disgraceful and laughable.”
“This is an incredibly strong and good leader.” pic.twitter.com/8aB7JTz0kt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 4, 2018
The White House confirmed that Trump will undergo “the customary presidential physical” at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Jan. 12. Results will be made public.
