Out gay Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) asked Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a Friday morning congressional hearing whether he would insist that President Donald Trump take a test to prove his mental fitness and emotional stability. Kennedy refused.
“Millions of Americans are questioning this president’s mental fitness, his emotional stability, and whether he can carry out the duties of his office. Do you share their concerns about his mental health?” Takano asked Kennedy during a hearing of the House Education and Workforce Committee about the budget of Kennedy’s department.
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To illustrate his point, Takano pointed out that on April 7, Trump wrote, “A whole civilization will die tonight,” in comments that Takano and others described as “calling for the eradication of an entire civilization.”
Takano then told Kennedy that, five days later, Trump repeatedly posted on his Truth Social microblogging network from 9 p.m. at night until 5 a.m. the next morning, including “an unhinged attack on Pope Leo, claiming Pope Leo was weak on crime” and posting an image of himself as Jesus Christ (though Trump later deleted the image and disingenuously claimed that it had depicted himself as a “doctor”).
“Mr. Secretary, people across the country and around the world were deeply offended by this blasphemous image,” Takano told Kennedy. “Millions of Americans are questioning this president’s mental fitness, his emotional stability, and whether he can carry out the duties of his office. Do you share their concerns about his mental health?”
When Kennedy tried to respond by commenting on Trump’s rhetoric, Takano noted that Kennedy refused to answer the question and concluded that Kennedy doesn’t share others’ concerns about Trump’s mental health.
Takano then continued, “We are a nation at war, Mr. Secretary. We need a leader that we know has full command of his mental faculties and is emotionally stable as he sends uniformed American men and women into harm’s way. Millions of Americans are now wondering if this president is delusional and thinks he is Jesus Christ. Mr. Secretary, given everything that I’ve shown you today, will you insist that President Trump undergo an assessment of his mental fitness and his emotional stability?”
“Absolutely not,” Kennedy answered, saying, “There hasn’t been a president who is more sane.”
“Thank you, Mr. Secretary,” Takano replied. “I remind you that under the 25th Amendment, you have a duty to remove a president who is physically or mentally unable to discharge his responsibilities under the Constitution. It’s your duty. You took an oath to the Constitution, not to President Trump.”
Takano isn’t the first person to publicly worry about Trump’s mental state.
Dr. Vin Gupta, a medical analyst for MS NOW, wrote of Trump, “Erratic. Can’t finish sentences. Often confused. Illogical train of thought. Word-finding difficulties. Developing and worsening gradually over time. The President is exhibiting all the signs of dementia.”
Dr. Gupta is far from the only medical professional sounding the alarm on Trump’s potential cognitive decline.
Dr. John Gartner, a former professor at John Hopkins Medical School and a psychologist and psychiatrist, said in February that Trump “used to be quite physically coordinated, and now he can barely walk a straight line” and “if you look at tapes of him in the 1980s, he was actually quite articulate… Now he has trouble completing a sentence, a thought, and sometimes even a word.”
In November of last year, Donald Trump’s clinical psychologist niece, Mary Trump, explained the signs that her uncle is in treatment for dementia or a stroke.
She noted that Donald Trump took a cognitive exam while receiving an MRI for unspecified reasons during a physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in January 2018. While he reportedly achieved a perfect score of 30, MRIs are a non-invasive imaging technique often used to assess brain activity, cognitive function, and even injury and abnormalities in the brain or the nervous system.
“Once again, we have Donald bragging about the results not just of the MRI, which indeed he aced, but also the cognitive assessment,” she said. “Donald Trump is not a well man. We need to continue to focus on the ways in which he is deteriorating cognitively, psychologically, emotionally, and intellectually.”
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