Donald Trump's advanced age and its effects on his mental and physical health have emerged as one of the most persistent conversations surrounding his presidency, and one psychologist believes that the matter is driving Trump to "paranoia" over potentially losing his power.
Dr. John Gartner, a veteran psychologist and former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, was a guest on the Monday edition of "The Daily Beast Podcast." During the interview with host Joanna Coles, he discussed the interview with Trump published by the Wall Street Journal on New Year's Day, in which he showed "defiance" in the face of public concerns about his age, claiming that he is in "perfect" health and expressing frustration over hearing about concerns "for the 25th time."
Gartner suggested that Trump's choice of words reflected his growing fear of having the 25th Amendment invoked against him due to his ailing health.
“We’re talking about it for the 25th time because people keep saying it’s 25th Amendment time," Gartner said.
The 25th Amendment contains various provisions concerned with handling vacancies in the office of the president and vice president. While it has to date only been invoked in situations calling for a new vice president or for the president to be temporarily replaced while undergoing medical procedures, it also contains an as-yet-uninvoked section that allows the Cabinet to vote on removing the president from office if they are unable to properly discharge the duties of the office but refuse to step down voluntarily. At that point the vice president would become acting president, pending several other procedures for determining the president's continued inability to serve out the remainder of their term.
Beyond physical issues, Gartner also expressed certainty that Trump is showing "clinical signs of dementia" and is becoming “paranoid” that his decline could present a “threat to power.”
"No story enrages Donald Trump more than the stories about his physical and cognitive health. And there’s a reason for that," Gartner said, also adding, "As he’s starting to deteriorate, one of the signs of dementia is people becoming more paranoid. The paranoia is becoming more grotesque, more primitive."
While Trump has at times seemed to struggle with remembering things, Gartner suggested that the president is dealing with a case of "frontotemporal dementia," which has less of an impact on memory and is more likely to "disinhibits people to basically act out badly."
“So we have this person who has virtually absolute power and no guardrails, who, in a demented state, is impulsively being driven to act out in these paranoid and destructive and crazy ways,” Gartner explained.
