WASHINGTON – A professor of psychiatry at Yale University gave a briefing to a dozen lawmakers from the House and Senate, who are concerned about their President Donald Trump’s mental fitness to be president of the United States of America, reported US media.
The briefing by Dr. Bandy Lee — the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President – was held around a month ago on December 5 and 6 last year. The lawmakers included mostly Democrats, and one Republican.
Lee talking to CNN said that “Lawmakers were saying they have been very concerned about this, the President’s dangerousness, the dangers that his mental instability poses on the nation. They know the concern is universal among Democrats, but it really depends on Republicans, they said. Some knew of Republicans that were concerned, maybe equally concerned, but whether they would act on those concerns was their worry.”
According to Politico, she pointed to Trump “going back to conspiracy theories, denying things he has admitted before, his being drawn to violent videos.” Lee also warned, “We feel that the rush of tweeting is an indication of his falling apart under stress. Trump is going to get worse and will become uncontainable with the pressures of the presidency.”
“Mr. Trump is showing signs of impairment that the average person could not see,” Lee said. “He is becoming very unstable very quickly. There is a need for neuropsychiatric evaluation that would demonstrate his capacity to serve.”
However, such statements are in violation of American Psychiatric Association’s “Goldwater Rule, which “asserts that while it is perfectly fine for a psychiatrist to share their expertise about psychiatric issues in general, it is unethical to offer a professional opinion about an individual without conducting an examination”.
Meanwhile, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders refused the remarks as “disgraceful and laughable”.
“If he was unfit, he probably wouldn’t be sitting there, wouldn’t have defeated the most qualified group of candidates the Republican Party has ever seen,” Sanders said.
It is to mention here that 57 Democrats have cosponsored a bill in the House of the Representatives seeking a commission to determine “whether the president is mentally or physically unable to discharge the powers and duties of office”.
According to the US Constitution, the sitting president can be removed from the seat through two ways -the first is impeachment by Congress and the Senate votes to oust him and the second is the 25th Amendment, under which vice president takes over the seat as acting president after majority of the cabinet find that “the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”.
