‘Trump has a thought disturbance’: psychiatrist claims White House officials contacted her about president’s behaviour
Trump defended his mental fitness in January, calling himself a ‘very stable genius’ and ‘like, really smart’
A Yale University psychiatrist claims White House officials contacted her last year out of concern for what they saw as US President Donald Trump’s increasingly erratic behaviour.
Bandy Lee, who edited the bestselling book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, told the New York Daily News on Thursday the staff contacted her because the president was “scaring” them.
Lee’s revelation came as Trump fumed in response to an anonymous op-ed about administration insiders and a White House tell-all by journalist Bob Woodward, who claims there are grave concerns among the highest ranks of the Trump administration about the president’s judgment.
Lee briefed a dozen lawmakers from the House and Senate last December about Trump’s fitness to be president. But lawmakers on Capitol Hill weren’t the only ones who said they were alarmed by Trump’s behaviour, troubling tweets or temper.
A pair of West Wing representatives contacted her two separate times on the same day because they believed the president was “unravelling”.
“I had not mentioned this before because I did not want to confuse my role as an educator to the public,” Lee said when pressed about why she did not speak up sooner. “I thought I would be more effective by retaining my public role than getting involved in either the treatment of those who were feeling scared or in the actual intervention with the president.”
He has a thought disturbance. When Donald Trump says something he expects others to believe it is reality
Salon first reported Lee’s claim. Around the same time, a Trump family friend emailed her about concern for his mental health.