Trump's heightened 'narcissism' hints at a worsening 'mental problem': conservative

U.S. President Donald Trump places the medal on himself as he is awarded the FIFA Peace Prize at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 5, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks told PBS he worries about President Donald Trump’s declining mental deficiency, particularly in light of his recent public displays of self-aggrandizement.

“I worry about his moral acuity,” Brooks told PBS NewsHour anchor Geoff Bennett. “I mean, he is a narcissist. But the Rob Reiner tweet was — and I'd say the events of the whole week, to be honest, he takes his narcissism, which is normally at 10, and he moved up to 15 this week.”

“And so the Rob Reiner tweet was — to take a man who was murdered, maybe by his son, and to write a tweet all about yourself, he just cannot contemplate the pain of another family. And that's a mental problem. It's certainly a moral problem,” Brooks said.

Trump sent Republicans fleeing from reporters this week after he brazenly blamed the Hollywood director’s murder on “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” even though Reiner and his wife were allegedly killed by their adult son Nick, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Brooks went on to criticize Trump putting his name on the Kennedy Center, which is a memorial to slain president John F. Kennedy.

“It is an assertion of power,” said Brooks. “You think, ‘who else has big porches themselves all over?’ Mao Tse-Tung. Stalin. Authoritarian leaders know that a certain part of the population likes it when they see the great leader idolized and venerated. I have a building right by my house on Capitol Hill, and it's Teddy Roosevelt and Donald Trump, gigantic portraits. And it does remind you of going back to the Stalin era.”

“It is a form of psychological amassing of power to turn yourself into a demigod,” Brooks said. “And I think, as sad and pathetic as he makes it, I think that's what he's trying to do.”

MS NOW show host Jonathan Capehart, who also sat for the PBS interview, said “if any other president had said what he had said or done what he had done, they would have been hauled out on the carpet, people asking questions, where are the doctors? Let's see his medical records.”

“We should be asking about the president's mental acuity,” Capehart said. “We should be asking, because he's 79 years old, ‘is he up for the job?’”

Read the full PBS interview at this link.

From Your Site Articles