Donald Trump took to Twitter this morning to defend his mental stability in the wake of the release of a new book that is raising new questions about that very same issue:
WASHINGTON — President Trump, in an extraordinary defense of his mental capacity and fitness for office, described himself on Saturday as a “genius” and “a very stable genius at that.”
In a series of Twitter messages that seemed to respond to revelations in a new book, Mr. Trump defended himself by charting his rise to the presidency, saying one of his chief assets throughout his life was “being, like, really smart.”
Even for a president who has shattered many of the conventions of the office, Mr. Trump’s response to the criticisms in the book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” by Michael Wolff, stood out. The book includes depictions by top White House staff members painting Mr. Trump as an uninformed and at times erratic president.
By taking on the issue so directly, the president ensures that the discussion of his capacity will only intensify. He is set to undergo a physical examination this coming week, but those tests for presidents do not generally involve mental acuity.
Mr. Trump is at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, this weekend, meeting with Republican leaders, cabinet officials and top aides to discuss the agenda for 2018.
Even for a president who has shattered many of the conventions of the office, Mr. Trump’s response to the criticisms in the book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” by Michael Wolff, stood out. The book includes depictions by top White House staff members painting Mr. Trump as an uninformed and at times erratic president.
By taking on the issue so directly, the president ensures that the discussion of his capacity will only intensify. He is set to undergo a physical examination this coming week, but those tests for presidents do not generally involve mental acuity.
Mr. Trump is at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, this weekend, meeting with Republican leaders, cabinet officials and top aides to discuss the agenda for 2018.
The long-simmering argument about the president’s state of mind has roiled the political and psychiatric worlds and thrust the country into uncharted territory. Democrats in Congress have introduced legislation to force the president to submit to psychological evaluation. Mental health professionals have signed a petition calling for his removal from office.
What it comes down to is an effort to understand and explain a president who acts so differently from every other person to have held his office. Mr. Trump’s self-absorption, impulsiveness, lack of empathy, obsessive focus on slights, tenuous grasp of facts and penchant for sometimes far-fetched conspiracy theories have invited armchair diagnoses and generated endless commentary.
“The level of concern by the public is now enormous,” said Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine and the editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” a book released last fall. “They’re telling us to speak more loudly and clearly and not to stop until something is done because they are terrified.”
As Politico first reported, Dr. Lee was invited to Capitol Hill last month to meet with about a dozen members of Congress to discuss the matter, and she has more meetings scheduled. All but one of the lawmakers she briefed are Democrats. While some Republicans have raised concerns, they do so mostly in private, and others scoff at the question, dismissing it as partisan politics.
Here’s the substance of today’s Twitter rant:
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…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018
….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…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018
….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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018
The whole thing brings to mind this scene from The Godfather, Part II:
David Frum comments:
Who and what Donald Trump is has been known to everyone and anyone who cared to know for years and decades. Before he was president, he was the country’s leading racist conspiracy theorist. Before he was the country’s leading racist conspiracy theorist, he was a celebrity gameshow host. Before he was a celebrity gameshow host, he was the multi-bankrupt least trusted name in real estate. Before he was the multi-bankrupt least trusted name in real estate, he was the protege of Roy Cohn’s repeatedly accused of ties to organized crime. From the start, Donald Trump was a man of many secrets, but no mysteries. Inscribed indelibly on the public record were the reasons for responsible people to do everything in their power to bar him from the presidency.
Instead, since he announced his candidacy in mid-2015, Donald Trump has been enabled and protected.
The enabling and protecting not only continues. It accelerates.
(…)
However crazy Trump may be, in one way he is indeed the “very stable genius” he claims to be: Trump understands how to mobilize hatred and resentment to his own advantage and profit. He has risen higher than Joe McCarthy or Charles Lindbergh or Theodore Bilbo—and he has lasted already nearly a full year in office, holding the approval of one-third of the country, more than sufficient to keep him there for a full term.
Michael Wolff has done a crucial service, showing more intimately than any reporter yet the true nature of the man at the center of the American system. But without the complicity of other power-holders, Trump would drop from his central position like a tooth from a rotten gum. What we need to do now is widen the camera angle beyond Fredo Trump to the hard-faced men and women over his shoulders. Those are the people who put Trump where he is, and keep him there, corrupting the institutions of American democracy and troubling the peace and security of the world.
To say the least, if you have to take to Twitter to defend your mental stability, then you’ve got real problems. This is especially true of a sitting President who has already had people question his stability and his grasp on reality based on the way he has behaved in public alone. What the Wolff book demonstrates is the fact that there are people around Trump who seem to have the same questions about him that people are raising on a regular basis based solely on what they see in public via his interactions with the media, his speeches, and his constant need to rant on Twitter and sometimes odd hours of the day when it seems like he ought to be spending time on more important matters.
If Donald Trump were just some random individual, this wouldn’t be a big deal. Unfortunately for us, though, he’s the President of the United States at least until the 20th of January, 2021. Because of that, these questions about his mental stability and judgment, both of which have been rightfully called into question, are entirely relevant and something that ought to worry average Americans and politicians in Washington. When we elect a President, we place an enormous amount of responsibility and power into the hands of an individual who, for better or worse, we have to trust will make the right choices even in situations where we might disagree with the choices that work. That requires believing that the person in question possesses the temperament, emotional stability, and maturity required to do the job. For the most part, we have had that throughout most of our history, and even in the case of Presidents who have made questionable choices it has been apparent that they were at least trying to do their best. Today we have a man who seems to get his news exclusively from Fox News Channel and who regularly engages in unhinged rants on social media even to the point about bragging about the size of his nuclear button.
That’s not a sign of a healthy mind, and it’s certainly not the sign of a person who belongs in the White House.
