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President Trump is Mentally Unwell

Here are three examples from just one day.
by Jim Swift
April 3, 2019
President Trump is Mentally Unwell
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

I regret to inform you of this. Our president is mentally unwell. It does not require a degree in medicine or psychiatry or neurology to make this observation.

On Tuesday, Donald Trump made the case for his troubled mental state in three acts.

ACT I

At an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the president said this:

“I have great respect for Angela and I have great respect for the country… My father is German, was German, born in a very wonderful place in Germany so I have a very great feeling for Germany.”

President Trump’s father, Fred, was born in New York. And this isn’t the first time Trump has mistakenly claimed his father was born in Germany.

ACT II

Later on Tuesday, President Trump gave a speech to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the political arm of the GOP that elects House members. There, he said this:

You can watch the whole thing here. Trump has spent plenty of his adult life in front of cameras. He knows when there are cameras around. (Remember all of those times during the campaign that Trump pointed to the very obvious media bullpen covering his campaign to shame them?) Did he really not know he was on camera at this point?

ACT III

At the dinner, President Trump seriously suggested that windmills… give you cancer.

Look, I don’t know about you, but if somebody close to you:

  • Repeatedly insisted a parent was born thousands of miles from where he was actually born—in another country, no less;
  • Was unaware of whether he was being recorded, when that was obvious to all;
  • Insisted that windmills can give you cancer …

I’d say that person is mentally unwell. I welcome your defenses of any/all of this.

Jim Swift

Jim Swift is a senior editor at The Bulwark.