Donald Trump is Mentally Unfit for Office and Must Go, Experts Say

President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks in the East Room of the White House at a Faith Office Easter lunch, Wednesday, April 1, 2026.

On May 5, 36 leading physicians and other doctors with expertise in mental health, including Nobel laureates, wrote that “it is our expert opinion that Donald J. Trump is mentally unfit” to be President of the United States” and that it was “urgent” to lawfully remove him from office. Their statement was released by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and entered into the Congressional Record by the Senate offices of Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Jack Reed (D-RI).

“[Trump’s] mental instability, coupled with his sole, unchecked authority to launch nuclear weapons, makes him a clear and present danger to the safety of all Americans,” said psychiatrist and violence expert Dr. Bandy X. Lee, one of the signatories, in her Substack column.

“While they did not offer diagnoses, the experts were informed by voluminous evidence from the historical record of the president’s bizarre and impulsive behavior, rambling digressions, factual confusions, unexplained sudden changes of course in strategic matters, both national and international, and his deeply impaired judgment,” wrote Lee.

“Since they circulated their concerns among medical colleagues, Mr. Trump has exhibited more signs of grandiosity, e.g., posting images of himself on social media shaking hands with God, acting like Jesus, and dressing as a Pope,” Lee wrote in her Substack. “And he has continued nocturnal bingeing on social media posts that are filled with accusations of multiple conspiracies against him, as often as 150 times a night.”

“Most worrisome are his outbursts of extreme, seemingly uncontrollable rage, such as his threat to destroy Iran, saying, ‘A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,’” Lee wrote.

For decades, a professional norm has governed how mental health clinicians who belong to the American Psychiatric Association talk about public figures: Don’t diagnose someone you haven’t examined. Known as the Goldwater Rule, it was established in 1973 by the APA after the 1964 presidential campaign. In a published survey of around 2,000 psychiatrists titled “The Unconscious of a Conservative,” over 1,000 questioned presidential candidate Barry Goldwater’s mental fitness for the office. Last week, 36 leading psychiatrists and other physicians and mental health professionals determined that the norm should be temporarily set aside, as Lee reported in her Substack.

In the formal statement entered into the Congressional Record, the group of medical professionals, composed of individuals “holding both conservative and liberal ideologies, identifying as both Republicans and Democrats, from different backgrounds, races, ethnicities, and religions,” stopped short of diagnosing Trump. Instead, they documented a pattern of behavior: impulsive decision-making, factual confusion, erratic strategic reversals and extreme rage that they argued constitute a clear and present danger to public safety.

The experts’ concern is pointed: The nation is in an unsanctioned war and the president alone holds authority to launch nuclear weapons, including a first strike, with no review process and no override mechanism. This authority, they note, becomes a grave danger to the American people and a hazard to the health of the planet. In the face of such conditions, these experts argue, remaining silent is unethical.

For a full look, see the medical experts’ statement in the Congressional Record. – Diana Hembree and Courtney Wise