Psychiatrist Bandy Lee Sounds Alarm on Trump's Mental State, Calling Him 'Severely Impaired' in Interview

Dr Bandy Lee, a forensic psychiatrist who has publicly commented on Donald Trump's mental state since his first term, has described the president as 'severely impaired' and warned that his condition could pose an 'extremely dangerous' risk to global stability.

Speaking in an interview, Lee said Trump's recent claims about the 9/11 attacks, along with other public episodes, indicated what she viewed as a deterioration in his psychological functioning.

Lee Points to 9/11 Claims and Public Behaviour in Assessing Trump's Mental State

Lee's latest alarm centres on Trump's evolving account of where he was and what he did during the 9/11 attacks. At a 9/11-related event earlier this month, Trump said that firefighters had helped him after he was at the World Trade Center site and described sending workers to assist with the response, according to his remarks.

Contemporary reports and archival accounts have challenged Trump's account of his role at Ground Zero, including his claims about being rescued from the rubble and sending a construction crew to assist at the site.

Trump's nephew Fred C. Trump III, who criticised his uncle's account in a post on social media this month, also disputed the claim. In a lengthy post on X, Fred Trump III said he normally refrains from commenting personally about his uncle but felt compelled to speak out because Trump's assertion that he brought a crew of workers to help at the site 'so offends me that I need to speak out.'

Lee interpreted what she described as Trump's self-insertion into the 9/11 narrative as resembling the behaviour of a small child trying to be 'king or queen of the universe.' 'It is abnormal and pathological when it involves a fully grown adult, whether it is because of arrested development or because one has regressed to that state,' she said.

Lee also pointed to occasions when Trump appeared to doze in public, including footage from a 9/11 memorial. She interpreted those moments as possible signs of the cognitive strain she believes he is experiencing, citing recent polling and the economic consequences of the conflict involving Iran as pressures she believes are bearing on Trump.

Even Trump's social media habits featured in Lee's analysis. She singled out a meme he posted of himself piloting a spaceship and blowing up the entire world, interpreting it as an 'alarming indication' of what she believes is Trump's sense of psychological threat.

'Alarming indications of how endangered he feels psychologically and how he needs to fight back, and become the most powerful and dangerous person on the planet,' she said. 'That is where his mind is going.'

Lee Warns Trump's Mental State Could Pose Global Risks

The stakes, in Lee's telling, go well beyond embarrassing headlines. She warned that, in her view, Trump's psychological state creates an 'extremely dangerous' situation because of the powers available to the president.

Lee argued that concerns about a president's psychological state take on particular significance because of the destructive force available to the office. She also pointed to the consequences of presidential authority over nuclear weapons, saying, 'The setup that we have is that we have no way of countermanding a, fit or not ... there's no way to countermand a nuclear weapon.'

Background: Lee's Earlier Warnings and Yale Controversy

Lee first drew national attention during Trump's first term when she edited The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, a collection of essays by mental health professionals who raised concerns about his temperament and behaviour in office.

The book was followed by events in Washington at which Lee and other mental health professionals discussed concerns about Trump's presidency.

The controversy was followed by Yale's decision not to reappoint Lee to her voluntary faculty appointment. Yale cited what it described as Lee's repeated violations of the American Psychiatric Association's Goldwater Rule and what it described as an inappropriate transfer of the duty to warn from the treatment setting to national politics.

The APA's Goldwater Rule says it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion about a public figure without having conducted an examination and obtained proper authorisation.

Lee subsequently sued Yale, but a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in August 2022. The court did not decide that Lee's underlying allegations about Yale were true; it ruled that her pleaded claims failed as a matter of law.

The statements about his psychological condition and their potential implications are Lee's views, based on her interpretation of his public behaviour and remarks.