URGENT COMMUNICATION TO CONGRESS
RE: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DANGEROUSNESS OF DONALD J. TRUMP

(Submitted on January 8, 2020)

We have been seriously warning about this for some time.  Now our warnings take on a startling urgency.  The U.S. Congress must act immediately and forcefully without further delay.

We have a U.S. president who is psychologically and mentally both dangerous and incapacitated.  His presentation is consistent with a person who, when his falsely inflated self-image is questioned, or when his emotional need for adulation is thwarted, lashes out in an attempt to restore his sense of potency and command over others.

All senior military leaders in the chain of command are required to pass yearly psychological as well as physical evaluations.  Only the person known as the commander-in-chief is exempt from this requirement, but at this time he is, in fact, the person in most need and who is a maximum danger.

There are clear medical and legal standards of care and protection to which we in the medical profession respond for the evaluation and constraint of such individuals.

We have a consensus that persons with risk factors such as our president would clearly be required to submit to an evaluation, regardless of choice.  We must also remember that his position makes him more dangerous, not less: he has the most destructive weapons and the greatest war-making powers at his disposal, but his mental defect also makes him a vulnerable target for manipulation by extremist forces within our country as well as in foreign nations.  Our adversaries are highly likely to have his psychological profile, while we ourselves are kept in the dark.

Our country is understandably now widely condemned as acting with illegal aggression and violence. International polls clearly indicate that many people throughout the world consider our country the greatest danger to world peace.  This is consistent with large amounts of data that indicate that we have worsened an already-unstable region.  At this critical time, we simply cannot wait any longer to deal with the dangerous situation caused by a mentally compromised person acting in erratic, impulsive, reckless, and destructive ways.

The power to declare war and to finance war is clearly constitutionally vested with the Congress.  The Congress must act immediately to take any war-making powers out of his hands. Assessment and management of psychological dangers rest on the medical community, and it is imperative that the Congress be equipped with accurate information.  We urge the Congress to consult with us for a profile, if not evaluation, and to take seriously the mental health aspects that are at play in this mentally impaired president.