1/6/2018
President Trump seems to be falling apart. In what can only be called an embarrassing attempt to dictate that he is of sound mind, the president tweeted that he is stable and a genius as well.
The tweets came after the recent release of Michael Wolff's book "Fire and Fury". In the book, Wolff described the sentiment of White House staff that Trump is unfit to hold the office of President or serve the nation. Trump, fuming over the book for days, finally let go on Twitter.
....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
It also recently became known that a Yale psychiatrist briefed a dozen lawmakers on Capitol Hill last month about Trump’s fitness to be president. Dr. Brandy X. Lee, edited The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, another book about Trump containing testimonials from more than two dozen psychiatric experts who have assessed Trump’s mental state from afar.
Dr. Lee has never personally interviewed the President, and The American Psychiatric Association prohibits doctors from diagnosing public figure from afar, but Lee says she’s merely observing behavior that she believes deserves a diagnosis. “We’re saying we see a lot of concerning signs and that he needs to be evaluated and that once he is, then they can diagnose him,” Lee said in an interview.
Among the behaviors Lee singled out: She says that “verbal aggressiveness indicates physical aggressiveness is not far behind”; that Trump has a history of “boasting about sexual assault”; that he has “incited violence at rallies”; and that he is “taunting a hostile nation with nuclear power.”
Regardless if Trump has actually been (or needs to be) evaluated by a psychologist or not, his actions and words have concerned a great number of people, including those in his own party. Conservative Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, tweeted that (Vice President) Pence should be preparing himself to take power in accordance with the 25th Amendment “in case it’s suddenly needed.” CNN anchor Jake Tapper said on Tuesday “None of this normal, none of this acceptable, none of this, frankly, stable behavior,” referencing Trump’s latest Twitter outbursts.
Never in American history has a president felt it necessary to proclaim their mental stability or the level of their intellect. It's even rare for that to happen in dictatorships. Saying your "like, really smart" almost certainly proves you are not, and when the President of the United States has to tell you that “mental stability” is one of his “greatest assets” it’s pathetic and very worrying to those concerned about national security.
