70 mental health experts just sent Trump’s doctor an alarming letter ahead of his physical

Last week’s explosive release of Michael Wolff’s new tell-all book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” was met this week with a series of bumbling attempts by the White House to push back against its thesis that President Trump is mentally unfit for the job.

Both the mountain of anecdotal evidence in the book, and the president’s pathetic attempts to counter its characterization of his poor mental faculties, have been fodder for cable news panels and newspaper columns for over a week.  But one group of concerned Americans are taking the unfolding events much more seriously.

 

Politico reported that “a group of more than 70 psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health professionals” are urging the president’s doctor to include a robust examination of Trump’s “neurological health” as part of the annual physical he was scheduled to undergo Friday.

“Your duty to this patient and the country that employs you as an officer of the United States Navy is to refer your patient to specialist care if any elements of your neurological and psychiatric examination yield pertinent results,” their letter reads.  “Your threshold for such referral should be low given this patient’s position.”

More from Politico:

“The letter writers note ‘increasing concern’ about Trump’s ‘declining faculties for complex thought, rambling speech, difficulty completing a thought,’ along with ‘suspect judgment, planning, problem solving and impulse control,’ among other issues.”

This may be the most urgent call to action by the mental health community, but it’s not the first. In September of 2017, dozens of doctors and researchers released the book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” that first raised the alarm.

Psychiatrist David M. Reiss contributed to that book and was also one of the signatories of the letter sent to the president’s physician today.  He told Politico that Trump has exhibited behavior that’s “disturbing, and it’s worrisome, and it really needs attention.  “It’s important for the public to see that these are concerns a lot of people have and understand our reasons and motivations,” he declared.

The White House announced in January that the physical examination would be administered Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, the official Presidential Physician who assumed the post during the Obama administration.  A mental health screening is not typically part of a physical, and so experts caution observers not to expect any bombshell revelations on that front.

But after the last couple of weeks, it certainly feels like we’re approaching a tipping point on this issue.  If the president is in the middle of a mental health, it’s certainly not improving without treatment.

Peter Mellado

Peter Mellado is a writer, producer, and a branding and messaging specialist with over 15 years experience. He studied history at San Jose State University, and resides in Los Angeles.