Something is rotten in the State of Denmark regarding the recent attack on Kurt Eichenwald. In case you didn't hear about the interview with Tucker Carlson last Thursday night on Fox News which provoked the attack on Eichenwald of Newsweek on Friday, please know that Eichenwald and Carlson engaged in a combative interview and that that interview was the proximate cause of the attack on Eichenwald, in my opinion. Briefly, the gold nugget in the interview, which Trump & Co. would just as soon you remain in the dark about, was Eichenwald stating that he believed that Trump had been hospitalized for a nervous breakdown in or about 1990 and that that was the reason that Trump would never release his medical records.
"I've been covering Donald Trump since the 1980's. In the late '80's I obtained medical records[...] In 1982 he was given a heavy prescription for an amphetamine derivative. [I heard] that he was getting restless, impulsive, that he wasn't sleeping, with these great variations of grandeur that he could do anything and in 1990 his whole empire was going into bankruptcy." (Carlson sputtered and shouted at this point -- cross-talk -- Eichenwald began again) "In 1990 I was told that there had been a breakdown...I didn't print it and I thought that Donald Trump was a private individual and it didn't matter." (More cross-talk.)
When listening to this I got excited. "Touchdown, Kurt!" I said. I thought that this was going to be the lead story in the news the following day; Eichenwald's latest investigative reporting coup, prima facie evidence of Donald Trump's ongoing and clinical medical instability. We got a lead story the next day alright, only it wasn't about Trump, it was about the attempt on Eichenwald's life via a strobing gif transmitted via Twitter which caused Eichenwald to go into an epileptic seizure.
This is a pervasive pattern with Trump to the point of being his hallmark. Whenever there is a real news story afoot, it gets knocked off the front page by some tangential and relatively speaking, inconsequential, story that is, forgive me, "trumped up," literally. A perfect example of this is the Hamilton twitter fest, which was rebroadcast on every media outlet in the world, smokescreening other graver news stories, namely Trump's issues with fraud in his foundation, his newest foreign policy gaffe -- you name it.
Back to the mental health issue, which I find of paramount if not supreme importance, given the fact that Trump is about to step into the Oval Office, allow me to share with you the one and only current news story that I could find referencing this topic. On Crooks and Liars yesterday I found the following, which is a copy of a letter sent to President Obama on November 29, 2016 from three psychiatrists, requesting that Obama obtain a neuropsychiatric evaluation of Trump before he assumes the duties of office.
President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
November 29, 2016
Dear President Obama,
We are writing to express our grave concern regarding the mental stability of our President-Elect. Professional standards do not permit us to venture a diagnosis for a public figure whom we have not evaluated personally. Nevertheless, his widely reported symptoms of mental instability — including grandiosity, impulsivity, hypersensitivity to slights or criticism, and an apparent inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality — lead us to question his fitness for the immense responsibilities of the office. We strongly recommend that, in preparation for assuming these responsibilities, he receive a full medical and neuropsychiatric evaluation by an impartial team of investigators. [Emphasis mine.]
Sincerely,
Judith Herman, M.D. Professor of Psychiatry Harvard Medical School
Nanette Gartrell, M.D. Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry University of California, San Francisco (1988-2011) Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School (1983-87)
Dee Mosbacher, M.D., Ph.D. Assistant Clinical Professor Department of Community Health Systems University of California, San Francisco (2005-2013)
Like the proverbial elephant in the room, everybody is side stepping this issue of Trump's mental health and nobody is directly confronting it; despite the clarion call that Kurt Eichenwald sounded on Fox News Thursday night about Trump's purported 1990 mental collapse. Additionally, the above referenced letter to the White House has not exactly been front page news. Does anybody reading this reasonably believe that in any other administration that a letter from three psychiatrists requesting the sitting President to obtain a psychiatric evaluation of the president elect would not constitute a news story? Does anybody think that if Hillary had won that psychiatrists would be writing President Obama requesting that he take the same action regarding her? Only in the New Normal of the year 2016 is such a thing possible. And of course the New Normal dictates, let's ignore this letter from a team of psychiatrists and focus instead on Trump's latest SNL tweet instead, and as a matter of course.
And don't expect the Republican party to lift a finger. They're cringing in the shadows and hoping that one of them won't get cornered by a reporter and asked to answer a real question. Remember the image of 80 year old Senator John McCain literally running away from reporters rather than be questioned about Trump's latest faux pas? Trump's fellow Republicans clearly decided long ago to simply ignore Trump and pretend that nothing is out of the ordinary, let alone that we are living in a political science fiction story. Mitt Romney allowed himself to be publicly humiliated when the carrot of Secretary of State was dangled in front of him. That incident is without precedent. Ted Cruz also publicly humiliated himself in October by endorsing Trump after Trump had previously insulted Cruz' wife and stated that Cruz' father was involved in the assassination of JFK. Ben Carson went into denial and stayed there after Trump compared Carson to a "child molester," and said that people like Carson couldn't be cured because they were "pathological."
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. If anybody's behavior is pathological, Trump's is. Even Melania told Anderson Cooper post p-gate that she had two little boys at home, ten year old Barron and her husband, our seventy year old president elect.
We don't need a "little boy" in the White House, unless like John John he's the son of the president and quite adorable. That is not the case here. As the psychiatrists wrote, I too question Donald Trump's fitness for the immense responsibilities of President of the United States. Personally, I am going to follow up on this letter to the White House from the team of concerned and clearly patriotic mental health professionals.
Now don't hold your breath in anticipation. I have been periodically following up on the FBI investigation of Steve Bannon's alleged illegal activities in receiving funds from a SuperPAC funded by Robert and Rebecca Mercer and that story is dead as a doornail from what I can determine. Quite frankly, I expect the psychiatrists' letter and Kurt Eichenwald's investigation of Trump's purported mental collapse in 1990 to die stillborn as well, unless Eichenwald himself decides to champion it and get the story wider coverage.
But despite all the opposition in our path, and a main stream media which, other than rare exceptions is not doing its job, we must, we unreservedly and unequivocally MUST continue to persevere with following these news stories and keeping them alive. Otherwise, Dear God, how are we going to survive the next four years as a nation?