October 24, 2024
Operating under the principle of “Duty to Warn,” 233 mental health professionals endorsed a letter published in the The New York Times describing Donald Trump as an “imminent catastrophic public danger” should he be re-elected, citing concerns based on his recent public appearances.
In the letter, the signatories argued that the 78-year-old Trump “exhibits behavior consistent with diagnostic criteria outlined in the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5 for narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and paranoid personality disorder,” adding that these traits were “further exacerbated by intense sadism, a feature associated with malignant narcissism.”
The letter further stated that “Trump appears to be showing signs of cognitive decline that warrant a comprehensive neurological evaluation, including MRI imaging and neuropsychological testing.” According to the authors, the reported symptoms include “reduced verbal fluency, tangential thinking, limited vocabulary, repetitive use of superlatives and filler words, perseveration, confabulation, phonemic and semantic paraphasia, confusion involving people and events, and declining judgment, impulse control, and motor functioning, including a wide-based gait.”
Describing the alleged evidence of decline as “disqualifying,” members of the group said they would expand on their concerns in a video scheduled to air on cable television during the final days of the campaign.
Boekestijn en de Wijk, 9 mei 2026.