Donald Trump Branded 'Severely Mentally Ill', Claims He Could Run For Prime Minister Of Israel After Presidency

Donald Trump was accused by Fox News viewers of being 'severely mentally ill' after he told reporters on an airport runway that he could run for Prime Minister of Israel once his time as US President is over, while lavishing praise on Benjamin Netanyahu and boasting about his popularity in the country.

The remarks follow a now-familiar pattern of Trump blending freewheeling political commentary with personal flattery and self-promotion.

The President has repeatedly presented himself as Israel's staunchest ally and has used his relationship with Netanyahu as proof, even as his public statements grow more eccentric, and critics raise questions about his age, fitness and mental sharpness.

Speaking to journalists on the tarmac, Trump described Netanyahu as 'a great guy' and a 'wartime Prime Minister' whom, he argued, Israelis do not 'treat right.' Then he pivoted sharply to himself.

'I'm at 99% in Israel right now, and I could run for prime minister,' Trump said, before musing: 'So maybe after I do this, I'll go to Israel, run for prime minister. At a poll this morning, I'm 99%, so that's good.'

The legal and constitutional impossibility did not enter the conversation. Instead, Trump circled back to Netanyahu, repeating that he did not think the Israeli leader was being treated well.

Fox News carried the comments alongside its coverage of Netanyahu, and the online reaction was immediate and unforgiving.

One social media user, quoted by The Express, wrote: 'Severely mentally ill. Trump embarrasses himself as he can't handle Russia going to China without obsessing over his own ratings. This is not normal adult behaviour.'

Another person focused less on the words than the man delivering them. 'Did he gain 20lbs... Not looking good physically, emotionally, or mentally. Time to remove the traitor,' they posted, in a characteristic mixture of armchair diagnosis and political fury.

A third commenter simply urged him to follow through on his own fantasy: 'Trump should go now and run for Israeli prime minister.'

Israeli Prime Minister Boast Fuels Trump Mental Health Row

The latest flashpoint came during a broader impromptu exchange in which Trump also weighed in on Chinese President Xi Jinping's meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin. Asked for his view of the talks, Trump replied, 'Well, he told me he was going to, I think it's good. I get along with both of them. But I think it's good.'

He then drifted into a comparison of diplomatic pageantry, adding, 'I don't know if the ceremony is quite as brilliant as mine, I watched. I think we topped him. Good team.' At one point, he quipped that he gets along 'with everybody but your husband and a few others,' according to The Express.

Individually, such lines are classic Trump: loose, improvisational, and laced with personal grievances. Cumulatively, they are feeding a narrative, especially among his opponents, that the oldest President in US history is sliding into something more troubling than off-the-cuff bravado.

The report notes that viewers' concern about Trump's health has been building in recent days. He is reported to be 79 years old and has faced growing scrutiny on Capitol Hill and beyond over 'visible health abnormalities and mental lapses.'

In that atmosphere, even jokes or boasts about Israel, Xi or Putin are not landing as throwaway remarks. They are being mined for signs of cognitive decline.

Trump's Israeli Prime Minister Quip Follows 'Ageing in Reverse' Posts

The runway appearance followed another odd turn in Trump's public messaging. Just days earlier, he had posted a series of social media images claiming that he is 'ageing in reverse,' an apparent attempt to mock, or simply bulldoze through, anxiety about his age.

The posts seemed to echo, or at least rhyme with, comments from Bo Loudon, a 19-year-old right-wing influencer who shared photos of Trump at a Virginia golf course and declared, '79 is the new 39. President Trump is ageing in reverse.'

It is not clear whether Trump or his communications team had seen Loudon's post before publishing their own material. The timing, though, underlines how central image management has become to his political project.

The more his age and mental acuity are questioned, the more he turns the subject into a punchline in which he is miraculously getting younger.

His critics are not laughing. The Fox audience responses quoted by the Express are not nuanced clinical assessments; they are raw political verdicts, delivered in the language of diagnosis. To call a presidential candidate 'severely mentally ill' is to say, bluntly, that he should not be trusted with power.

There is, however, no medical assessment offered in the coverage, no doctor on record, no formal evaluation.

What exists instead is a clash of perceptions, Trump insisting he is a reverse-ageing global dealmaker, certain he could win an election even in another country, and a cohort of viewers insisting, just as confidently, that something is badly wrong.