Donald Trump looks and talks like a person who is mentally ill, says CNBC correspondent John Harwood, and others at the network are also questioning the president’s sanity, Mediaite is reporting.
Trump’s behavior at the G7 summit, during which he’s railed against “unfair” trade practices with America’s closest allies, suggested allowing Russia back into the fold, threatening retaliatory tariffs, and criticized presidents going back to the Eisenhower administration, has been described as “harsh” even by Fox News . But for Harwood and his CNBC colleagues, it’s more concerning than that.
Speaking to MSNBC’s AM Joy on Saturday, Harwood brought up Trump’s behavior at the summit.
“He did not look well to me in that press conference. He was not speaking logically or rationally. There was something about his affect which was oddly kind of languid from him. I don’t know what it means, but he did not look well to me.”
Harwood’s concerns were echoed by his colleagues. MSNBC contributor Malcolm Nance compared him to a monarch who’s lost touch with reality.
“He came off like Mad King Donald.”
Meanwhile, Mother Jones correspondent David Corn was equally concerned.
“If you were talking to me this morning the way we just heard Donald Trump talk, I would ask you if you’d taken any medication, advise you not to operate any heavy machinery.”
Trump threatens to end trade with all G7 countries https://t.co/bcs2UNIr7e pic.twitter.com/GSygN1ru9Y
— The Hill (@thehill) June 9, 2018
Disregarding Trump’s mental health, there’s little doubt that the president has been, at the very least, inconsistent at the G7 summit. After complaining at length about trade imbalances and threatening to cut off trade with even the U.S.’ closest allies, Trump then made what Business Insider describes as a “stunning reversal,” stating that there should be no tariffs and no barriers to trade at all. This comes a week after Trump imposed harsh tariffs against U.S. allies, including Canada, Mexico, and the European Union.
This is not the first time Trump’s mental health has come up in conversation. Back in April, as Vanity Fair reported at the time, Trump advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that they were concerned with the president’s mental health. In particular, they were worried about what Trump might say or do during a five-day vacation at Mar-a-Lago with nothing on his schedule, in advance of a summit with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.
Similarly, as Fox News reports, Trump’s personal physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, endured a barrage of questions about the president’s mental health. Jackson tried to ease concerns by pointing out that the president had scored perfectly on a cognitive test that included being told to draw a clock.