‘The Age of Trump Is a Massive Mental Health Crisis’

Final Live Interview on the Weekend Show, Link Below, at 8 p.m. EST / 5 p.m. PST!

8 hours ago

Long-time Salon journalist Chauncey DeVega interviewed me:

The midterms will not be a magical cure all. If Democrats somehow win, the coming weeks and months could be among the most dangerous in American history. Trump’s spiral of pathological behavior continues to accelerate. Over the course of several weeks, he has voiced support for a public execution, shared videos on social media of people being mauled by tigers and other wild animals, incited violence against Somali immigrants and refugees, and led MAGA cult rallies where people have been assaulted…. I just sense a general increase in the last few months especially of meanness, of hostility, things I am seeing on the day to day, just here in one major city that I was not seeing before…. What do we know?
People are suffering more, enraged, not knowing where to direct their anger and actually directing it at people who are innocent,… because that is the mentality that the leader has. But the true source … was that the mental impairments that Donald Trump has [was bound to] translate into not only psychological dangers from his office, but the kinds of unspeakable violence and destruction socially, culturally, politically, and in terms of our government, democracy, not to mention the very survival of humankind, which he is constantly threatening. This is the ordinary course of placing someone with [his] mental impairments … in an office such as U.S. presidency.
How are you feeling? Because I got ahead of myself, given everything that is happening just in the course of the last few days. How the heck are you doing?
I am one of the privileged people, because I have psychiatric knowledge. I understand what is happening, and I also have skills. The first thing that you learn as a mental health professional is that you set boundaries, because you cannot treat the mentally-ill, the seriously-disturbed individual without being affected yourself—unless you have very clear boundaries…. People know I have a master in divinity and I have a whole spiritual practice and an artistic practice. I am not deprived, but I am certainly on edge in terms of what needs to be done, because … naturally as a physician, I think in terms of intervention, and I look at solutions because there are solutions….
But you said something there that got me nodding. [As a journalist,] I can’t imagine being in this great time of evil and not doing something. My conscience won’t allow it.
And don’t think you are alone…. There can be fellowship among us, and that can be very powerful. In fact, that is the most powerful thing there is. That is why the evil forces in power have to divide [in order to] conquer….
We have to recover our mental health first. Mental capacity, rationality, is the requirement before any other system can work. That is what people need to realize. We are in a mental health crisis that is getting us to a terminal state. We have to take care of our mental health first….
Where do we go from here?
Treat a mental health crisis as a mental health problem. We cannot ignore it anymore. Treating it as a political issue will only enable and facilitate the violence that mentally-impaired individuals will inevitably drive us all into. So, the first step is, again, to take care of ourselves. That could not be emphasized enough, because that is the source of our imagination, our solutions, our action, and our strength.

The rest of the interview can be heard here.

We speak of what must be done beyond the vote—and I about working on what underlies the vote—but it is still critical to vote! It is a powerful expression, which is precisely why those in power are doing everything possible to suppress it.

Meanwhile, Express reported the following:

Influential health experts have also sounded the alarm [regarding Donald Trump’s health], including psychiatrist Dr. Bandy Lee, who … compared him to a toddler who “has to be king or queen or ruler of the universe in order to fight the feeling that they are quite helpless and dependent on others’ care”….
The president’s physician Dr. Sean Barbarella … insists he is in “excellent” condition. Dr. Barbarella said earlier this year that Mr. Trump … “is fully fit to carry out all duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State.”

I have been emphasizing since former White House doctor Ronny Jackson’s egregious violations how unethical it is for a White House-employed, military subordinate of the commander-in-chief to declare his boss, “fit for duty.” He can declare him, “physically fit”—but a fitness for duty, whether physical or mental, can only be assessed by an independent evaluator. We have seen the catastrophic results of this gaslighting, when Jackson quelled concerns early in the first Trump administration by declaring the president, “mentally fit,” as an emergency physician who does not even have the training to do mental fitness evaluations!

(These may seem like minor distinctions to the public, but they are legally critical. People need not worry that the president could let himself, “off the hook,” by invoking mental problems. “Fitness for duty” and “fitness to stand trial” are very different standards, and while a psychopath may not be fit to hold office, he is eminently fit for prosecution, knowing the difference between right and wrong.)

Barbabella is in a position to hospitalize Donald Trump for containment as well as a full battery of neuropsychiatric tests, but he will not. I suspect he has not even included a psychiatrist among the twelve specialists he consulted, lest the psychiatrist act on medical obligations. He may have made the political calculation that short-term gain from compromising his medical principles outweighs the potential long-term criticism of his violations of medical ethics—for which prominent physicians have already complained to his licensing board.

However, we know from the unprecedented federal funding the American Psychiatric Association (APA) received during the first Trump administration after silencing all of us—and the recent very scary reporting of what the second Trump administration has done to the entire bedrock of American science—what the reality-denying president requires. And these compromises have facilitated the destruction of the United States for many generations to come.

When no one will act on the public’s behalf, the public has only itself left—with the backing of independent physicians and mental health professionals, of course—as I will discuss in my final interview with Anthony Davis on “The Weekend Show”:

Announcement:

Now is a critical period when much burden lies on the people to protect themselves. While her weekly appearances on Meidas Touch, on “The Weekend Show,” are coming to an end, Dr. Bandy X. Lee will continue to hold her “Project for Human Survival” meetings, now combined with her “Presidential Psychiatric Emergency” meetings, every Wednesday. The next meeting will be November 4, 2026, at 6 p.m. EST (please note the changing times, to accommodate speakers of various time zones). An interview will be skipped this week to discuss the results and ramifications of the midterm elections. Paid subscribers will receive a link an hour before (paid subscriptions are for participant protection; please contact Dr. Lee if you cannot afford a subscription but would like to attend).