Donald Trump’s Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in the middle of a marathon series of congressional hearings to justify the administration’s budget, but the nation’s top health official is facing a growing number of questions about the president’s own mental health.
House Democrats on Friday repeatedly pressed Kennedy to address concerns about his fitness for office after the president threatened that “a whole civilization will die” in Iran and posted an AI-generated image depicting himself as a Christ-like figure.
Kennedy shot down questions about whether he would invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office and refused to suggest that the president undergo a cognitive exam.
He called Trump “very, very sane” and the “most stable” president.
More than 80 House Democrats and several Democratic senators are urging Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to declare him unfit for office, and the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee is urging the White House physician to perform a mental exam and share the results with Congress.
“Millions of Americans are questioning this president’s mental fitness, his emotional stability, and whether he can carry out the duties of his office. Do you share their concerns about his mental health?” asked Democratic Rep. Mark Takano, holding up blown-up placards of the president’s Truth Social posts.
“Given everything that I’ve shown you today, will you insist that President Trump undergo an assessment of his mental fitness and his emotional stability?” he asked Kennedy.
“Absolutely not,” Kennedy said.
Takano said Kennedy has a constitutional duty to remove a president “who is physically or mentally unable to discharge.”
“You took an oath to the Constitution, not to President Trump,” he said.
Kennedy said Trump’s Truth Social post threatening to destroy Iranian civilization was a “nuanced message” signalling “brute force” to the regime and “love and compassion for the Iranian people.”
“You can look at it and say ‘it’s insane that he’d make this kind of threat.’ But he’s a deal-maker. He’s a bargainer,” Kennedy said.
“He’s very, very sane,” he added.
In a recent letter to White House Physician Captain Sean Barbabella, Rep. Jamie Raskin urged Trump’s doctor to immediately perform a cognitive exam, stating that the president is showing warning signs “consistent with dementia and cognitive decline” following his outbursts and statements that have turned “increasingly incoherent, volatile, profane, deranged, and threatening.”
“His apparently deteriorating condition has caused tremendous alarm across the nation (and political spectrum) about the president’s cognitive function and continuing mental fitness for the office of president, and prompted concerns about the president’s wellbeing,” Raskin wrote.
Friday’s round of questions followed days of bipartisan scrutiny into Trump’s mental state, including from prominent right-wing figures who have supported the president for years.
Trump frequently praises his performance on a cognitive health exam designed to detect mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer’s.
“I’m the only president that ever took a cognitive test. I took it three times. It’s actually a very hard test for a lot of people. It wasn’t hard for me. But it’s a cognitive test,” he brought up in the middle of a Cabinet meeting last month.
“It starts off with an easy question. And by the time you get to the middle, it gets tougher,” he said. “By the time you get to the end, very few people can answer those questions. They get very tough mathematical equations and things.”
The Montreal Cognitive Assessment consists of 30 questions such as identifying pictures of animals and drawing a clock.
Barbabella said in a memo last year that the president is in “excellent health.”
A bill proposed by 50 House Democrats would create a 17-member commission to determine if a president needs a medical exam to determine if he or she is “mentally or physically unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office”.
“We are at a dangerous precipice, and it is now a matter of national security for Congress to fulfill its responsibilities under the 25th Amendment to protect the American people from an increasingly volatile and unstable situation,” Raskin said in a statement introducing the bill.
Democratic Rep. John Larson, who filed an impeachment resolution against Trump, said the president is “becoming more unstable by the day.”
He filed 13 articles of impeachment against Trump, alleging “criminal lawlessness” and “presidential tyranny” with his war in Iran and attacks in Venezuela and elsewhere, as well the deployment of militarized law enforcement into U.S. cities and campaign to detain and deport “citizens or immigrants based significantly on race or ethnicity or political opposition.”
