Trump’s NYT Interview: Proof That He’s Mentally Unfit To Serve?

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump gave an impromptu interview to a reporter from The New York Times. If you read excerpts of that interview, you’ll notice that Trump repeatedly said the word “collusion,” tried to blame the Democrats for the things he is accused of, and even said he thought Special Counsel Robert Mueller would be “fair” in his investigation of the 2016 election.

While the Times interview would appear at first glance to be par for the course when it comes to a typical interview with the president — i.e. unfocused, rambling, and at times almost incoherent — some wonder if perhaps Trump is in an advanced state of mental decline that’s accelerating by the day.

Charles P. Pierce of Esquire wrote an incredibly insightful piece the day after the Times published the interview, and said he’s seen the same symptoms before that Trump exhibits now:

“Over the past 30 years, I’ve seen my father and all of his siblings slide into the shadows and fog of Alzheimer’s Disease. (The president’s father developed Alzheimer’s in his 80s.) In 1984, Ronald Reagan debated Walter Mondale in Louisville and plainly had no idea where he was. (If someone on the panel had asked him, he’d have been stumped.) Not long afterwards, I was interviewing a prominent Alzheimer’s researcher for a book I was doing, and he said, ‘I saw the look on his face that I see every day in my clinic.’ In the transcript of this interview, I hear in the president’s words my late aunt’s story about how we all walked home from church in the snow one Christmas morning, an event I don’t recall, but that she remembered so vividly that she told the story every time I saw her for the last three years of her life.”

Pierce goes on to use quotes from the interview as proof of his hypothesis:

“But Michael, I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A. I know the details of health care better than most, better than most. And if I didn’t, I couldn’t have talked all these people into doing ultimately only to be rejected.”

“But another reason that I’m going to win another four years is because newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes.”

Have we entered a moment in American history that requires we invoke the 25th Amendment to replace Trump? A few more interviews like the one this week could convince even the most hardcore supporters that a mentally unstable president is indeed a threat to our national security.

Featured Image Via Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 2.0.