Mick Mulvaney Suggested Donald Trump’s Alleged Mental Illness Is A Good Thing, Report Says
In a blockbuster report from The New York Times, author Maureen Dowd claims that former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who was ousted on Friday, suggested that Donald Trump‘s alleged mental illness may be a benefit. According to Dowd, the revelation is recounted by ABC News chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl in his new book, Front Row at the Trump Show.
In the book, Karl reportedly recounts how Mulvaney recommended that senior White House staffers read Nassir Ghaemi’s A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness.
During the introduction of the book, Ghaemi, the director of the mood disorders program at Tufts Medical Center, argues that “insanity” creates “good results” in “at least one vitally important circumstance.” In this circumstance, he argues that sanity is a “problem.”
“In times of crisis, we are better off being led by mentally ill leaders than by mentally normal ones,” he wrote.
“The new acting chief of staff seemed to be saying President Trump was mentally ill — and that this was a good thing,” Karl wrote.
“The corollary to that theory: Don’t try to control the man in the Oval Office. What you think is madness is actually genius.”
Speaking to Karl, Ghaemi allegedly claimed that Trump fit perfectly into his book’s thesis, although he noted that the extreme spectrums of mania can be both disabling and dangerous.
Ghaemi previously spoke to Raw Story in March of last year and provided an analysis of Trump’s tendency to deflect blame to former President Barack Obama, who the president most recently blamed for delays in coronavirus testing. According to Ghaemi, Trump may be consciously trying to confuse his critics in an attempt to shield himself from blame. He also said such reactions may stem from unconscious defense mechanisms.
As reported by Business Insider, over 750 psychiatrists and mental health professionals signed a petition in December of last year in which they raised a red flag over Trump’s mental health.
“We are convinced that, as the time of possible impeachment approaches, Donald Trump has the real potential to become ever more dangerous, a threat to the safety of our nation,” wrote Yale psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee, former CIA profiler Jerrold Post, and George Washington University psychiatrist John Zinner.
? Live at https://t.co/Xup8cdtnFB: Dr. Bandy Lee, forensic psychiatrist, on urging lawmakers to call for an urgent mental evaluation of Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/qL3YkOFfbw
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) December 8, 2017
Lee has been one of the most vocal mental health professionals to warn of Trump’s mental state. As The Inquisitr previously reported, she recently warned of the danger of the president’s state of mind amid the spread of the coronavirus, and the criticism of the Trump administration’s response to the crisis.
Despite Lee’s warnings, some are critical of her decision to break the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Goldwater rule, which prohibits psychiatrists from publicly diagnosing the mental health of public figures without personal examination.
