(Portrait of a scary Donald Trump is by Jim Carrey.)After watching Donald Trump for two-and-a-half years, I'm convinced that this is a person with serious problems. I don't mean political or financial problems (although those do seem to abound). I think he has psychological problems - and they're getting worse. Even administration aides are starting to worry about that.
Here is part of an article in Business Insider by Sonam Sheth about it:
President Donald Trump's aides and confidants are growing more and more worried about his mental state after days of erratic behavior, wild outbursts, and bizarre fixations. "No one knows what to expect from him anymore," one former White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations about the president, told Insider. They added: "His mood changes from one minute to the next based on some headline or tweet, and the next thing you know his entire schedule gets tossed out the window because he's losing his s---." Sources told Insider the president's advisers are particularly worried about his stubborn refusal to acknowledge that a tweet he sent over the weekend claiming that Alabama was going to be hit by Hurricane Dorian was false. They believe that his frustration is compounded by stress about the 2020 election and the economy's recent downturn. "People are used to the president saying things that aren't true, but this Alabama stuff is another story," the former official said. "This was the president sending out patently false information about a national-emergency situation as it was unfolding." Trump's latest outbursts on the matter came Friday as he railed against the media for fact-checking him on the claim. . . . As of Friday evening, Trump had posted 15 tweets and five maps about Alabama and the storm to try to prove his original tweet was correct, despite the fact that he'd been publicly rebuked by the National Weather Service. He also showed reporters an altered mapof the storm's path on Wednesday to defend his claims, a move that may be illegal, according to federal law. "He's deteriorating in plain sight," one Republican strategist who's in frequent contact with the White House told Insider on Friday. Asked why the president was obsessed with Alabama instead of the states that would actually be affected by the storm, the strategist said, "you should ask a psychiatrist about that; I'm not sure I'm qualified to comment.". . . Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House communications director, also weighed in on Trump's state of mind on Friday. "I think the president is in severe mental decline, and I'm not saying that now because I'm a political adversary or I disavowed him. I'm saying that objectively just looking at what's going on," Scaramucci said at the Toronto Global Forum. This isn't the first time questions have been raised about Trump's mental state and his fitness for office. In fact, it's a regular topic of discussion in the White House. This was confirmed by the anonymous author of a New York Times op-ed last year who said Trump's aides routinely ignore or dismiss his orders for the good of the country. Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" and Bob Woodward's "Fear: Trump in the White House" detailed similar instances. . . . Indeed, one person who was close to Trump's legal team during the Russia investigation told Insider his public statements were "nothing compared to what he's like behind closed doors." "He's like a bull seeing red," this person added. "There's just no getting through to him, and you can kiss your plans for the day goodbye because you're basically stuck looking after a 4-year-old now."
