WASHINGTON: At least a dozen members of the US Congress — most of themDemocrats — were briefed by a Yale University professor of psychiatry on USPresident Donald Trump’s mental health, US media reported.
The briefing by Dr. Bandy Lee — the editor of The Dangerous Case of DonaldTrump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President — tookplace on December 5 and 6.
“Lawmakers were saying they have been very concerned about this, thePresident’s dangerousness, the dangers that his mental instability poses onthe nation,” Lee told CNN.
“They know the concern is universal among Democrats, but it really dependson Republicans, they said,” according to Lee.
“Trump is going to get worse and will become uncontainable with thepressures of the presidency,” she told Politico.
All but one of the lawmakers briefed were Democrats, and Lee declined toidentify lone Republican attendee.
Offering such an assessment of Trump’s mental health appears to contravenethe American Psychiatric Association’s “Goldwater Rule,” which “assertsthat member psychiatrists should not give professional opinions about themental state of someone they have not personally evaluated”.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders dismissed the remarks as “disgracefuland laughable”.
If Trump “was unfit, he probably wouldn’t be sitting there and wouldn’thave defeated the most qualified group of candidates the Republican Partyhas ever seen”, Sanders said, referring to the 2016 Republican primaryfield.
In the House of Representatives, 57 Democrats have cosponsored a bill thatwould establish a commission to determine “whether the president ismentally or physically unable to discharge the powers and duties of office”.
The US Constitution provides for two ways to remove a president fromoffice: the first is a dismissal by Congress, in which the House votes toimpeach the president and the Senate votes to remove him.
The second is the 25th Amendment, which provides for the vice president toassume the office of “acting president” if the vice president and amajority of the cabinet determine that “the president is unable todischarge the powers and duties of his office”.