Donald Trump could have been exposed and stopped long ago

Trump's mental illness has been obvious for years

Dr. Bandy X. Lee

Donald Trump is in trouble now, fading and challenged as all autocrats eventually are, but still likely to take more steps that will keep government under his control, that will allow him to invoke the Insurrection Act, martial law, or even more unthinkable acts. 

He is still the mafia don who has instilled false but serious fear into many. As I have said since the very beginning, he will never relent, never admit to any wrong, and never give up power, unless he is stopped from without. 

However, the situation could get so difficult for him, with his cognitive abilities and now his physical as well as his mental health declining—as I pointed out from the very beginning—as to make him ever more dangerous. 

Nearly eight years ago I was invited to write an article for the Guardian, headlined "Trump is now dangerous - that makes his mental health a matter of public interest". In that article, I wrote:

There is another pattern by which he is dangerous. His cognitive function, or his ability to process knowledge and thoughts, has begun to be widely questioned. Many have noted a distinct decline in his outward ability to form complete sentences, to stay with a thought, to use complex words and not to make loose associations. This is dangerous because of the critical importance of decision-making capacity in the office that he holds. Cognitive decline can result from any number of causes—psychiatric, neurological, medical, or medication-induced—and therefore needs to be investigated. Likewise, we do not know whether psychiatric symptoms are due to a mental disorder, medication, or a physical condition, which only a thorough examination can reveal.

Of course, his cognitive state is much worse now, precipitously declining at a rate far greater than is attributable to normal aging.

A few days after the Guardian article, CBC published an article headlined "Psychiatrist's new warning that Trump's mental state 'is a national and international security risk."with the headline:

It featured this information:

the National Coalition of Concerned Mental Health Experts [precursor to the World Mental Health Coalition], led by Dr. Bandy Lee—a forensic psychiatrist with an expertise in violence at the Yale School of Medicine—issued a statement calling for an emergency evaluation into Trump’s behaviour and mental health. Last month and again this week, psychiatrists led by Lee met with members of Congress to express their concerns about Trump’s fitness for office.

Fast forward to earlier this year, and in April 2025 an article that contained an interview with me headlined "Psychiatrist calls Trump's mental unfitness a 'Public Health Emergency'."

In it I said the following:

Donald Trump is the most dangerous man in the world, and this is the most dangerous moment ever—not because he is the worst but because we allowed his pathology to magnify over time…. Given his instability and fragility, his decisions will be unpredictable, irrational, and changeable…. The end goal of pathology is destruction and death, which is why we treat it. This is also how I was able to predict the destructiveness of his first presidency—which in my opinion included the eventual 1.2 million American deaths from Covid-19, the propagation of political violence, the exacerbation of economic inequality, the destruction of the climate, the replacement of international collaboration with transactional combativeness, a renewed and accelerated nuclear arms race, and a global emboldening of brutal dictators that laid the groundwork for the intensity of wars in Ukraine and Gaza. I also believed that there was a large possibility he would be reelected and bring a sledgehammer to this country, as he is doing now.

The previous year, on November 4, 2024, the day before the election, MindsiteNews also published an article highlighting myself and the World Mental Health Coalition headlined "Mental health experts continue their 'Duty to Warn' about Trump's mental unfitness up to the 11th hour."

It stated the following:

The group of psychiatrists and doctors that first warned about the “unmistakable” signs of Donald Trump’s mental instability in the first year of his presidency has continued its effort to sound the alarm right up to the last day before the momentous election that could return him to office.

Simultaneously, we posted on the World Mental Health Coalition web site, our “Statement on Cognitive Concerns in the Presidential Election,” signed by fifty of the most eminent neuropsychiatrists, neurologists, and geriatricians in the nation:

We are a group of medical and mental health professionals with expertise in aging, mental fitness, and how these relate to the capacity for leadership and ensuring our national security. We feel an obligation to express concerns about the manifestations of poor cognitive function in former President Donald J. Trump.

While we cannot make a formal diagnosis without direct examination, his repeated public behaviors and speeches demonstrate strong evidence of significant cognitive decline, aligned with common signs of an early dementia, and include:

o Deterioration in language skills, such as simpler vocabulary, incomplete and incoherent sentences, grammatical errors, and paraphasias (substituting words)

o Impaired memory/recall, such as confabulation, where memory gaps are filled with false or fabricated details

o Tangential thinking, where speech often drifts to unrelated topics in an erratic manner

o Inappropriate or vague statements that lack connection to reality

o Perseveration, where thoughts or ideas are repeated without a relevant trigger

o Rigidity in thinking, evidenced by an inability to adapt or revise opinions, often manifesting as “doubling down”

o Amplification of maladaptive personality traits, such as paranoid (invented threats), narcissistic (excessive focus on self), or antisocial (criminal and dangerous) personality traits

o Disinhibition in speech, such as the frequent use of vulgar, profane language or hate speech

o Disinhibition in behavior, such as impulsive decision making or aggression and violence

We believe these observable and repeated behaviors warrant public awareness of their implications. The multiple signs and symptoms we have observed in Mr. Trump comprise critical information for America’s 2024 presidential voters. We submit this informed opinion by fifty (50) nationally renowned professionals in the interest of public trust and safety.

Voters should consider these facts.

Now, at the end of an immensely destructive year, I hope it will be clear to the public why mental health experts felt the need to come forth and to speak up in unprecedented ways, why we felt such extraordinary obligation, with the special knowledge we have, and how mental health—or its lack—formed the foundation for what we see today, no matter what it initially looked like on the outside (the distinction should now be clear between just another political ideology and mental pathology). 

The failure to intervene with a mental health problem with the mental health resources that we have—so as to prevent vast, unnecessary suffering, destruction, and deaths—is a legacy that will stay with us for generations, if we survive this period at all.

Dr. Lee is a forensic and social psychiatrist who became known to the public through her 2017 Yale conference and book that emphasized the importance of fit leadership. In 2019, she organized a major National Press Club Conference on the theme of, “The Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” In 2024, she followed up with another major Conference, “The More Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” She published another book on fit leadership that has been recently expanded, in addition to a volume on how unfitness in a leader spreads and two critical statements on fit leadership. Dr. Lee warned that journalists and intellectuals are the first to be suppressed in times of unfit leadership, and it is happening here; she continues, however, to be interviewed or covered abroad, such as in France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Russia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Canada (with notable articles in Dutch, Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Slovakian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Persian, Hindi, and Korean). She authored the internationally-acclaimed textbook, Violence; over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters; and 17 scholarly books and journal special issues, in addition to over 300 opinion editorials. Dr. Lee is also a master of divinity, currently developing a new curriculum for public education on “One World or None.”