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A PSYCHIATRISTS OPINION OF TRUMP
7 / 13 / 2017
The Psychiatrist is Keith Abelow
Good background: Brown and Johns Hopkins.
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Following President Trump's announcement that the USA would withdraw from the Paris accord, a former CBS
anchor (now with AXS TV) slammed the President with a series of ad hominem attacks, that ended with strong
suggestions that the President had some serious psychological issues. Many others have made the same assertion.
Whether you like Trump or not, below is one psychiatrists assessment of our 45th President. In the paragraphs
below, Dr. Keith Abelow, psychiatrist, provides his opinions on this subject. Let me issue the standard
disclaimer of psychiatrists who discuss the mental health of public figures:
I have not personally examined President Trump. .Now, let me put to rest the concerns of Sen. Al Franken and
political commentators John Oliver and Andrew Sullivan and anyone else who publicly or privately has
questioned the President's sanity: Donald Trump is stone cold sane.
When a man acquires billions of dollars through complex real estate transactions, invests in many countries,
goes on to phenomenal success in television and turns his name into a worldwide brand, it is very unlikely that
he is mentally unstable.
When the same man obviously enjoys the love and respect of his children and his wife, who seem to rely on him
for support and guidance, it is extraordinarily unlikely that he is mentally unstable.
When the same man walks into the political arena and deftly defeats 16 Republican opponents and then the
Democratic heir-apparent to a two-term President's administration, the odds of that man being mentally
unstable become vanishingly thin. And when that very same man attracts to his team the kind of intellect and
gravitias represented (to name just a few) by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson,
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a retired
Marine Corps general and commander of the U.S. Central Command, he cannot be mentally deranged. Period.
It is a statistical impossibility.
Those who assert otherwise are political opportunists, or fools, or both (and I am thinking here, in particular,
of Sen. Franken).
President Trump is the first human being to win this Nation's highest office without having held any other
political office or serving as a general. Most political pundits thought his quest was pure folly.
Most journalists assessed his chances as zero. So who was laboring under quasi-delusional thinking? Answer:
Not Donald J. Trump.
Anecdotally, by the way, I have never had one bad Trump experience. Not one. I own several of his ties - all of
them of the highest quality. I have stayed in his hotels and never had a single complaint, (and I am a born
complainer). I have eaten in his New York restaurant, flawless service, excellent food. I own an apartment at
Trump Place in Manhattan. Impeccable design, sturdy construction, fabulous amenities. A mentally unstable
man would be unlikely to deliver superior products across multiple industries, don't you think?
If you're still worried about the mental stability of the President, note this: The stock market doesn't like
instability. Investors, enmasse, can take the measure of a man pretty darn well. The stock market has hit record
high after record high since Trump's election, and if you think that's an accident, or that investors have all been
fooled, it's time to start wondering about your own capacity for rational thought.
I should note that nothing I am saying should besmirch the reputations of men like President Abraham Lincoln
or Sir Winston Churchill, both of whom are said to have fought the ravages of major depression or bipolar
disorder. One was instrumental in ridding America of slavery. The other was instrumental in saving the world
from tyranny.
Mahatma Gandhi, by the way, also reportedly suffered from depression. Psychiatric illness does not, a priori,
disqualify a person from rendering extraordinary service to mankind.
Mind you, neither Lincoln nor Churchill nor Gandhi led a nation after becoming a business sensation and
television star. That trifecta defines one man: President Donald J. Trump.
Now think about those who are rabble-rousing about the President's mental status. Take Sen. Al Franken. He's
all worried about the President allegedly over estimating the crowd size at his inauguration. But Franken is allied
with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who asserted she is Native American, when there is no evidence of that whatsoever.
And they're calling Trump's sanity into question? Really, you can't make up this stuff!!
Dr. Keith Ablow, Psychiatrist.
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