‘He is Unfit for Any Office!’

Let Me Summarize

We mental health experts recognized signs of his unfitness right from the start.  This was the whole purpose of organizing our conference at Yale School of Medicine shortly after inauguration, and of putting together The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President within the first four months of his presidency.  We only recently learned that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly found our book to be akin to a “user’s manual” on how to contain and control his boss.  We can only imagine what might have been possible had he consulted us directly.

We still tried to inform the nation, meeting with Congress members and holding events such as our major interdisciplinary conference at the National Press Club.  Had our warnings been taken seriously and acted upon, the United States would not have suffered more per-capita pandemic deaths than any other advanced country in the world, would not have endured the January 6 unprecedented insurrection-coup attempt, and would not be contending with the kind of global instability from a rise of emboldened dictators (whom Donald Trump elevated more than any other American president).

Now even Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, in her opening remarks at the final hearing of the January 6 Committee she co-chairs, bluntly told the nation: “He is unfit for any office!”  That was precisely our conclusion when we analyzed the reports of his close associates and coworkers under sworn testimony, four years ago.  Yet, what she and her Committee negligently did not do in their Final Report is heed our urgent advice and suggestions on what steps should be taken to make what we have experienced in recent years far less likely in the future.  

We must not shy away from acknowledging the fact that mental health is the foundation for everything else, and to attend to the now public mental health crisis that is at hand.  It is the direct or indirect result of failing to address the mental impairments of a person who was unfit for the U.S. presidency—or any job—from the start.