A president’s fitness for office is a matter of national interest
During the 1964 presidential election, Fact Magazine polled psychiatrists, asking whether the conservative Republican candidate Barry Goldwater was fit to be president.
The resulting article — “1,189 Psychiatrists Say Goldwater Is Psychologically Unfit To Be President!” — resulted in a lawsuit (Goldwater v. Ginzburg) in which Goldwater won damages and a new rule that was added to the American Medical Association’s code of ethics henceforth known as the Goldwater Rule.
The rule (Annotation 7.3) stated that when asked to comment on public figures that doctors refrain from diagnosing, which requires a personal examination and consent. Interestingly, the American Psychiatric Association has never formally adopted this rule.
However, in 2016 and 2017, a number of clinical psychologists faced criticism for violating the rule by publicly stating that President Trump displayed an assortment of personality problems, including grandiosity, a lack of empathy, and malignant narcissism.
On Dec. 5, 2019 a group of mental health professionals, led by Brandy X. Lee, a forensic psychologist at Yale, urged the House Judiciary Committee to consider Trump’s “dangerous mental state” as part of the ongoing impeachment process.
Of course, average Americans have no trouble with diagnoses. How many times have we all said about someone we have encountered: “They’re crazy.”
The issue of mental capacity/stability ended the ill-fated reelection campaign of President Joe Biden with the media posing the question and just about everyone weighing in with an opinion. An op-ed by actor and Democratic activist George Clooney in the New York Times warned that it was dangerous to ignore the warning signs that were apparent to everyone.
In recent days, such questions have arisen again with a vengeance about President Trump. His obscene and offensive Easter morning Truth Social post, his posting of an illustration of himself as a Christ-like figure (quickly removed after a backlash), and his threat to end the Iranian civilization have prompted headlines such as the one in the New York Times the other day: “Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate.”
Defenders of the President will dismiss something that comes of the “liberal New York Times” and his defenders have characterized his more extreme comments as efforts to gain leverage in foreign policy negotiations or just an example of his speaking style, which is “honest” and “transparent.”
However, it is not just the left these days. Megan Kelly asked if the President, who will turn 80 in a few months, had “the capacity” to understand what his advisers were telling him. Joe Rogan said the President “does babble and sounds like the brain is not doing too hot.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Ty Cobb, and Stephanie Grisham — all current or former Trump allies — have raised questions, including whether the invocation of the 25th Amendment should be considered. President Trump has called those critics “low IQ, stupid, nut jobs, and troublemakers.”
As for the American people, polling suggests that their unease is growing. In a recent Reuters poll, just 45% (down from 54% in 2023) say the President is “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges.”
Every year, the American president goes to the Bethesda Naval Hospital for his annual physical, which is reported to the American people. With President Trump, those reports have been almost comical in their positive glow. It is as if the doctors had examined Superman.
The President likes to invoke national security as a justification for nearly everything he does. Is it not a matter of national security that we know that the President of the United States is both physically and mentally fit to carry out his duties and wield the awesome power of the presidency?
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.