Talk of Trump’s mental health spreads
White House calls questions about his fitness ‘absurd’
When Sen. Bob Corker, RTenn., said last week that President Trump hasn’t “been able to demonstrate the stability” needed for success and recommended he “move way beyond himself,” it was news mostly because Corker has been one of Trump’s key supporters in Congress.
Then James Clapper, who served in top intelligence jobs under Presidents George W. Bush and Obama, questioned Trump’s “fitness to be in this office” Wednesday morning, and said he was worried about the president’s access to the nuclear codes. Clapper, who had a long military career, is a close friend and longtime colleague of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a former Marine Corps general.
“If, in a fit of pique, he decides to do something about Kim Jong Un, there’s actually very little to stop him,” Clapper, former head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said on CNN. “The whole system is built to ensure rapid response if necessary. So there’s very little in the way of controls over exercising a nuclear option, which is pretty damn scary.”
Until now, talk of Trump’s behavior was common on social media, late-night talk shows and among political opponents. Trump’s “fire and fury” comments about North Korea, a raucous rally in Arizona on Tuesday and his changing responses to the violent protests in Charlottesville, Va., crossed a line for some Republicans and brought the conversation into the mainstream, even among some supporters.
A poll by the media and
technology company Morning Consult over the weekend showed 55% of respondents said Trump was not stable.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a former constitutional law professor at American University, sponsored legislation in April that would set up an independent commission to determine whether a president no longer had the physical or mental capacity to perform the duties of the office. The 25th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified 50 years ago and calls for such a body, but it was never set up.
The bill has 28 co-sponsors, and although more can’t be added until Congress goes back into session Sept. 5, Raskin said there’s been “a sudden spike after every acute episode” involving Trump’s behavior.
“We need every tool in the constitutional tool kit to be able to deal with the unfolding and accelerating crisis of presidential power in America today,” Raskin said.
Raskin noted the commission would be in place if future presidents could no longer serve.
Former New Hampshire Republican Sen. Gordon Humphrey urged his congressional delegation this month to support the bill because Trump is “impaired by a seriously sick psyche.”
Speculation about the president’s mental health has spawned a cottage industry of psychiatrists and authors opining on his fitness for office.
But the White House has cast doubts on the growing chorus of Trump critics.
“With all the ‘medical opinions’ out there, it’s as if doctors have left their practices due to the Obamacare disaster and are now attempting careers in TV,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement. “This is nothing more than another absurd attempt to attack the president. It did not work during the campaign, and it will not work now.”
Psychiatrist Bandy Lee is consulting with Democratic members of Congress and other psychiatrists about setting up an expert panel to advise Congress about Trump’s mental health.
Lee, who said she spoke out because of Trump’s “dangerousness,” edited the upcoming book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, to which 27 mental health professionals contributed.
“Narcissistic personality disorder describes a debilitating need to project grandiosity so as to fight the inner feelings of low selfworth,” Lee said. “In extreme forms, narcissistic personality disorder is one of the disorders most associated with violence and is sometimes considered to be on the same spectrum as antisocial personality disorder, or sociopathy.”
Psychiatrist Allen Frances, who conceived of the diagnostic definition of narcissistic personality disorder, has his own book coming out next month, Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump.
Frances said he doesn’t think Trump has narcissistic personality disorder because it hasn’t caused him distress and impair- ment. Besides, he said, it’s voters who should have the final word.
“He’s not going to be defeated by a bunch of mental health workers saying he’s crazy,” Frances said. “The way to defeat him is political.”
Unlike all the empathic people who were “grieving openly about the terrible loss of life and threat of racism” after Charlottesville, “narcissists care more about being right or promoting a point of view,” said psychiatrist Judith Orloff, author of The Empath’s Survival Guide, which includes a chapter on narcissism.
“If a narcissist is forced to comply with a belief they don’t really have, they will go through the motions of ‘saying the right thing ’ but then retract their statement when they have a change,” Orloff said. “Narcissists aren’t open to being told what to do, and they will rebel against that.”
After Trump’s declaration a week before Charlottesville that military action by North Korea would be met with “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” Lee and four other psychiatrists who contributed to her book wrote a letter to all members of Congress.
“It no longer takes a psychiatrist to recognize the alarming patterns of impulsive, reckless and narcissistic behavior — regardless of diagnosis — that, in the person of President Trump, put the world at risk,” read the letter to Congress. “We now find ourselves in a clear and present danger, especially concerning North Korea and the president’s command of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.”
Tony Schwartz, who co-authored Trump’s 1987 book, The Art of the Deal, then became one of the president’s sharpest critics, had stopped speaking publicly about him in recent months but appeared on MSNBC Sunday and discussed what he called Trump’s narcissism and impulsiveness.
Schwartz, who runs a human resources consulting firm called the Energy Project, contributed to Lee’s book. He tweeted Sunday that Trump is “prima facie mentally ill,” noting that one doesn’t need to be a psychiatrist to see it.
Schwartz said he decided to talk about Trump again because of North Korea and Charlottesville.
“I am deeply worried that Trump’s deep deficits and his resulting lack of self-regulation and judgment puts our country and the world at risk of obliteration,” he said.
Many psychiatrists refused to comment directly about the president.
Some said it’s unethical and unfair to those with mental illness to do anything close to rendering a clinical opinion on a public official’s mental health. Psychiatrist Judith Orloff says narcissists go through the motions of saying the right thing, then retract it.
RESTRICTIONS RELAXED
Even so, a leading mental health association loosened restrictions on some of its members.
The American Psychoanalytic Association gave members permission last month to discuss Trump’s mental health publicly without concern for what’s called the Goldwater rule.
During the 1964 presidential campaign, the magazine Fact published the results of a survey about questions surrounding Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater’s mental health.
After losing the race in a historic landslide, Goldwater sued the magazine and won a libel suit, an extremely difficult accomplishment for a public figure. Since then, psychiatrists have generally steered clear of analyz- ing the mental health of public officials.
The Goldwater ethics rule says psychiatrist members of the American Psychiatric Association shouldn’t offer a “professional opinion” about someone in the public eye “unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.”
“If one has questions about an individual’s public behavior or capacity to govern, it’s incredibly problematic to conflate with a mental illness,” said psychiatrist and Harvard Medical School pro- fessor Rebecca Brendel.
Brendel is a consultant to the ethics committee of the American Psychiatric Association. It says psychiatrist members of the American Psychiatric Association shouldn’t offer a “professional opinion” about someone in the public eye … “unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.”
Doing so when it’s about an individual a psychiatrist hasn’t treated diverges from established treatment methods, which include “careful study of medical history and first-hand examination of the patient,” wrote psychiatrist and APA President Maria Oquendo.
Mental illness and physical illness “are not clearly so separate,” says Brendel, who asserts that a medical assessment is required to make sure any apparent psychiatric symptoms aren’t caused by medical problems.
Lee, who is no longer a member of the psychiatric association, says she respects the Goldwater rule but disagrees with what she says was an “expansion” of the rule issued in March that said a psychiatrist compromises “both the integrity of the psychiatrist and the profession” by offering any public opinions or comments about public officials.
She isn’t making a diagnosis and agrees that doing so “from
“We need every tool in the constitutional tool kit to be able to deal with the unfolding and accelerating crisis of presidential power in America today.” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.
afar is not only unethical, but impossible.”
“I only mention words and behaviors in relation to the president that point to his dangerousness,” says Lee.
Frances doesn’t think Trump is mentally ill, he agrees with those who think he’s dangerous.
“Trump isn’t crazy — but we are for electing him and not taking seriously the existential threats his policies pose to the health of the people in America, the future and the safety of the world,” Frances said.