We Are Facing a Psychiatric Emergency

The media needs to step up. Donald Trump needs to be removed from office.

This man, seen less than two weeks ago at his self-serving midterm convention, controls America’s nuclear arsenal. (Photo by Andrew Harnik via Getty Images)

You might recall that I wrote about the need for Donald Trump to be removed from office back in April. That essay was provoked by Trump’s mad threat to blow up Iran’s civilian infrastructure. “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” he posted, concluding with “Praise be to Allah.” This threat was delivered on Easter Sunday, and it wasn’t the first of its kind. He had previously threatened to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages where they belong.”

As I put it then:

The contents of this post provide the clearest possible evidence that this man must be removed from office—that he is unfit to carry out his duties, which require someone capable of rational thought. His increasingly extreme actions, impossible to miss, cannot be glossed over. Something is terribly wrong with him. It is deadly dangerous.

I noted that we have a constitutional mechanism to handle such a person who is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” My subsequent plea for the invocation of the 25th Amendment was ignored, of course. Trump is surrounded by sycophants and miscreants, exactly the cabinet he wanted to assist his corrupt and criminal enterprise. Congress, meanwhile, is stuffed with Republican cowards and feckless men and women desperate to stay close to power and hold onto their embarrassing political careers.

But a critical aspect of this that deserves greater attention is the role of the legacy media—its complicity in furthering his methodical pursuit of maximum power and his unhinged extremism by failing to definitively name and cover his escalating downward spiral.

We all saw how President Joe Biden’s bad debate performance on June 27, 2024 triggered a media pummeling that ended with his decision to exit the race three weeks and three days later. After the debate, I described Biden’s “terrible night” when his answers were “garbled, incomplete, hard to follow,” adding that “it surely reinforced the worries that many have about his age and ability to handle the job.” I hadn’t anticipated the scale of the fury by Democrats that followed.

But it is horrifying to watch the daily psychiatric emergency that is Donald Trump and the relative silence that follows. There are so many examples of his deteriorating state on a nearly daily basis that I could detail to make this point. But let’s just reflect on his self-defined “banning of the free press” on Friday (which led to my Saturday prompt: “Is Trump Collapsing?”).

I get that most of the media focuses on the serious First Amendment issues at risk with Trump barring CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House and threatening to do the same to The New York Times and The Washington Post. At first blush, his anti-constitutional “reasoning” is that their content is “fake” and “negative” and he finds it “disgusting.” Blah, blah, blah, said the dictatorial narcissist who can’t handle criticism and will break our sacred laws in order to protect his fragile ego.

But when asked what this ban actually entails, Trump told one reporter, “I don’t want them in my office.” Later, when asked about an upcoming speech at the United Nations, Trump blathered on about the teleprompter that didn’t work and the escalator that stopped, boasting that “I’ve built a lot of escalators.”

Joe Biden looked and sounded old so he had to go…or at least the legacy media had decided that this was the story that required maximum, unceasing attention. This even though there were no apparent dangerous policy positions or decisions triggered by his physical state. But Donald Trump’s daily tantrums, unhinged outbursts and erratic, vengeful attacks on Americans and allies alike are essentially factored in as just a fact of life and not deserving of ongoing critical coverage.

What gives here? Is it the fact that psychological problems are not treated with the same seriousness? Is it that journalists believe that they lack the clinical ability to assess psychiatric disorders? Perhaps it’s the sad little fear of losing access or being mocked by one’s peers if you actually say out loud what you can see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears?

It’s not like there aren’t actual experts who haven’t provided their clinical insights to guide the thinking of journalists and others who can help. In May, a group of three dozen neurologists, psychiatrists, physicians and other mental health professionals, experienced in the diagnosis of cognitive disorders released a statement warning that Trump is a “clear and present danger to the world.”

Responding to his observable behavior over the past year, they cited “marked deterioration in cognitive functioning,” “grandiose and delusional beliefs, including assertions of infallibility,” “severely impaired judgment and impulse control, reflected in reckless threats of violence,” “episodes of apparent somnolence during critical public proceedings” and “significant loss of self-control.”

Their conclusion: He is “mentally unfit to be the President of the United States” and “steps to remove him from office must be undertaken with the greatest urgency.”

That was four months ago.

So let me be direct: We are in the midst of a psychiatric emergency. Many of America’s allies can see the unpredictability, the unstable behavior that is so dangerous in a leader for the functioning of economies and the conducting of regular government functions. This is particularly true given his power over America’s nuclear arsenal and the world’s largest military.

It is not sufficient to address every issue that spews forth from Trump’s Oval Office with the time-worn framing of a real president conducting actual policymaking. And particularly in an election season, the last thing we need is horse-race coverage that only attempts to calculate whether the White House occupant is up or down and how he is or isn’t affecting particular races.

I don’t mean ignore approval ratings, which tell us how the electorate is perceiving him. I don’t mean evaluating how his endorsements or speeches can have an effect. I mean every action needs to be assessed in the context of his psychological dysfunction, his cognitive decline and his untethered relationship to reality—rather than the typical framing of a sane president managing the nation’s affairs.

Take the latest example from yesterday. Suddenly, Trump’s come up with new justifications for his 250-foot so-called “triumphal” arch. He’s previously claimed that this self-serving ego trip was for “national security purposes,” and now he’s insisting this structure will be a “top grade” military complex to keep and deploy drones, snipers and ammunition. “There will be no facility like this anywhere in the World,” he posted, claiming that this is “at the strong request of the United States Military.”

The Washington Post’s story is skeptical, quoting critics and noting that the new claims “come as veterans groups, historic preservationists and others attempt to stop the project.” They also recognize that the national security justification mirrors Trump’s argument to justify his ballroom—undermining the legitimacy of his argument.

But they don’t take the extra step to note that this whole vanity project is yet another expression of an unwell man who is exploiting the power of his office to pursue projects and policies for his own benefit. These news reporters may believe that to this approach ventures into commentary rather than hard facts, but I would argue that there is enough evidence and a consistent pattern of behavior to state this.

We should have expected legacy media to understand its duty. In 2024, that would have meant consistently explaining how a second Trump term would be a grave danger to our democracy. Now it means warning the public about this ongoing psychiatric emergency. Yet, too often, his behavior is sane-washed as an unorthodox president taking unusual actions.

No, we don’t have a responsible cabinet or Congress that will do its duty and invoke the 25th Amendment or impeach this man. Tragically—like being a backseat passenger with a drunk man at the wheel and no one riding shotgun to save us—we are currently stuck riding this out. We can only hope that there will not be some new catastrophe—which could have been stopped—caused by a sick and desperate man.

But in exactly six weeks, we can be the adults in the room. We can perform an intervention. We can state loudly and clearly that there’s a psychiatric emergency and we need responsible leaders who will use their power to lessen the danger. And that includes pursuing impeachment to seek Donald Trump’s removal and activating investigations and prosecutions that also hold his lawless operatives accountable.

As we head to the midterms, it’s more important than ever to support the survival of democracy. I remain committed to raising my voice as vividly and fiercely as I can. I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber for just $50 a year or $5 a month to show your support and enhance your engagement—to share your thoughts in the comments sections and access all content.