Mental issues? No, I’m a genius, insists furious President *
SENIOR US officials fear Donald Trump is suffering from dementia, has learning difficulties or could even have ADHD, according to Michael Wolff.
In an explosive interview with The Mail on Sunday, the Fire And Fury author said that the White House had become a ‘madhouse’ under the current regime – and warned it was ‘getting madder’.
The astonishing comments, which go much further than previous speculation over Mr Trump’s state of mind, will infuriate the US leader.
Yesterday, in an extraordinary intervention, the President took to Twitter to defend his mental state, describing himself as a ‘very stable genius’.
In a series of tweets, a clearly infuriated Mr Trump wrote: ‘Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.
‘Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius… and a very stable genius at that!’
Mr Trump also compared the growing debate over his health to the speculation that surrounded Ronald Reagan and his fitness to be President.
He tweeted: ‘Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence.’
But Mr Wolff insisted that the fear over Mr Trump’s mental capacity was widespread in the White House, and that it had its roots in his childhood.
He said: ‘He’s just a rich wastrel. He was bad at school. They don’t know if it is because he had learning disabilities. They discuss it at the White House: his apparent inability to read one page or one paragraph. He can’t even follow a PowerPoint. They wonder where that is from. ADHD? A learning disability?
‘They thought maybe the guy couldn’t read or is semi-literate.’
White House insiders also speculated whether Mr Trump had ‘the early stages of dementia’, said Mr Wolff.
‘Whether it’s lack of sleep, the compounded effects of age… or there’s actually some impairment – and that’s a possibility – everybody around him discusses that.’ Mr Wolff added that he wasn’t suggesting Mr Trump was ‘clinically mad’, but that he was so ‘unpredictable and egomaniacal’ the White House had become a ‘madhouse’. And it was getting worse, he warned. ‘Everyone around him says the symptoms have got worse in the year he has been in office – his attention span has lessened, his verbal patterns are more peculiar. The White House exaggerates character traits. Trump came to the job with character traits weirder than other people and counter-productive to being President.’ The speculation over Mr Trump’s state of mind is proving to be one of the most damaging elements of the fallout from Mr Wolff’s book. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was forced to state yesterday that he had ‘never questioned’ Mr Trump’s mental fitness.