A majority of Americans think that Trump’s mental fitness for the presidency is a legitimate issue, a new survey shows.
According to the SurveyMonkey poll released Friday, 55 percent of Americans said that raising the issue was important, while 41 percent said attempts to do so were politically motivated.
Predictably, the results break down along partisan lines: 88 percent of Democrats say it’s an important issue, compared to 54 percent of independents and just 19 percent of Republicans.
Concerns about Trump’s mental fitness for the office have spiked after the release of the new book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” which contends that the president’s closest advisers question his mental stability. Author Michael Wolff claims that Trump has been unable to recognize old friends and that his behavior is impulsive and childlike. In an interview promoting the book, Wolff has said that within the president’s inner circle, discussion of removing him via the 25th Amendment is “alive every day.”
The survey was taken between January 10-11, a few days after Wolff made those remarks.
In December, more than a dozen members of Congress met with a Yale psychiatry professor for two days to discuss President Trump’s mental fitness for office. During meetings on Dec. 5 and 6, Dr. Bandy X. Lee warned the group that Trump “is going to unravel, and we are seeing the signs.” Lee edited “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” in which 27 psychiatrists assessed the president’s mental state as “dangerous.”
On Jan. 6, Trump tweeted that he is “a very stable genius.”
On Tuesday afternoon, White House doctor Ronny Jackson appeared at the daily press briefing to discuss the results of Trump’s physical exam. He said there were “no concerns” about the president’s cognitive ability. He told reporters the president scored 30/30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which according to its website is a “cognitive screening test designed to assist Health Professionals in the detection of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.”
