Donald
TrumpÕs Mental Stability
By
Dr. Keith Ablow, Psychiatrist
Let me issue the standard
disclaimer of psychiatrists who discuss the mental health of public figures: I
have not personally examined President Trump.
Now,
let me put to rest the concerns of Sen. Al Franken and political commentators John Oliver and Andrew Sullivan and anyone else who publicly or
privately has questioned the presidentÕs sanity:
Donald
Trump is stone cold sane.
When
a man acquires billions of dollars through complex real estate transactions,
invests in many countries, goes on to phenomenal success in television and
turns his name into a worldwide brand, it is very unlikely that he is mentally
unstable.
When
the same man obviously enjoys the love and respect of his children and his
wife, who seem to rely on him for support and guidance, it is extraordinarily unlikely that he is mentally unstable.
When
the same man walks into the political arena and deftly defeats 16 Republican
opponents, and then the Democratic heir-apparent to a
two-term presidentÕs administration, the odds of that man being mentally unstable
become vanishingly thin.
And when that
very same man attracts to his team the kind of intellect and gravitas
represented (to name just a few) by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of
Defense James Mattis,
a retired Marine Corps general and commander of the U.S. Central
Command, he cannot be mentally deranged. Period. It is a
statistical impossibility.
Those
who assert otherwise are political opportunists, or fools, or both (and I am
thinking, in particular,
of Sen. Franken).
President
Trump is the first human being to win this nationÕs highest office without
having held any other political office or serving as a general. Most political
pundits thought his quest was pure folly. Most journalists assessed his
chances as zero. So who was laboring under
quasi-delusional thinking?
Answer:
Not Donald J. Trump.
Anecdotally,
by the way, I have never had one bad Trump experience. Not one! I own several
of his ties Ñ all of them of the highest quality. I have stayed in his hotels
and never had a single complaint (and I am a born
complainer). I have eaten in his New York restaurant Ñ flawless
service, excellent food. I own an apartment at Trump Place in Manhattan. Impeccable
design, sturdy construction, fabulous amenities.
A
mentally unstable man would be unlikely to deliver superior products across
multiple industries, donÕt you think?
If
youÕre still worried about the mental stability of the president, note this:
The stock market doesnÕt like instability. Investors, en masse, can take the
measure of a man pretty well. The
stock market has hit record high after record high since TrumpÕs election,
and, if you think thatÕs an accident, or that investors have all been
fooled, itÕs time to start wondering about your own capacity for rational
thought.
I
should note that nothing I am saying should besmirch the reputations of men
like President Abraham Lincoln or Sir Winston Churchill, both of whom are said to have fought
the ravages of major depression or bipolar disorder. One was instrumental in
ridding America of slavery. The other was instrumental in saving the world from tyranny.
Mahatma Gandhi, by the way,
also reportedly suffered from depression. Psychiatric illness does not, a priori,
disqualify a person from rendering extraordinary service to mankind.
Mind
you, neither Lincoln nor Churchill nor Gandhi led a nation after becoming a
business sensation and television star! That trifecta defines one man:
President Donald J. Trump.
Now,
think about those who are rabble-rousing about the presidentÕs mental status.
Take Sen. Al Franken. HeÕs all worried about the president allegedly
overestimating the crowd size at his inauguration. But Franken is allied with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who asserted she is Native American, when there is
no evidence of that whatsoever.
And theyÕre
calling TrumpÕs sanity into question? Really, you canÕt make this stuff
up.
Dr.
Ablow is an American psychiatrist, author, and television personality. He is also a contributor on psychiatry for Fox News Channel and TheBlaze. Ablow resigned as a member of the American
Psychiatric Association in 2011.[3] As of 2011, he was also an assistant clinical
professor at Tufts
University School of Medicine.