DONALD ON DONALD/MENTAL HEALTH/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump, whose sometimes erratic behavior in office has generated an unprecedented debate about his mental health, declared on Saturday [1-6-18] that he was perfectly sane and accused his critics of raising questions to score political points.
In a series of Twitter posts that were extraordinary even by the standards of his norm-shattering presidency, Mr. Trump insisted that his opponents and the news media were attacking his capacity because they had failed to prove his campaign conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign…
The president’s engagement on the issue is likely to fuel the long-simmering argument about his state of mind that 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. Others call armchair diagnoses a dangerous precedent or even a cover for partisan attacks.
In the past week alone, a new book resurfaced previously reported concerns among the president’s own advisers about his fitness for office, the question of his mental state came up at two White House briefings and the secretary of state was asked if Mr. Trump was mentally fit….
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 generated endless op-ed columns, magazine articles, books, professional panel discussions and cable television speculation.”
-Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, “Trump, Defending His Mental Fitness, Says He’s a ‘Very Stable Genius’,” The New York Times online, Jan. 6, 2018