The fact that the White House physician feels more compelled to placate Trump’s ego than to provide an honest assessment of the president’s wellbeing speaks volumes about his mental health.
|
Listen To This Story
 |
The results of Donald Trump’s annual physical seem great for a 78-year-old obese man who pretends to be 6’3” and 224 pounds (here he is standing between 6’2” Elon Musk and 6’2” JD Vance). He is not only in great physical health but also aced a test in which elderly patients are asked to identify a lion and come up with 11 words beginning with the letter “F” in one minute.
To test our own cognitive function, we tried to match him and barely came up with enough random “F” words: Felon, fraudster, fraudulent, falsehoods, fool, fake, flagitious, feeble, false, fat, and fascist.
Of course, if you are familiar with the president’s history of getting doctors to provide him with… let’s call them, creative statements regarding his health (beginning with a diagnosis that kept him out of the draft for the Vietnam War), then this should not come as a surprise.
White House physician Sean Barbabella, who seems to be suffering from a case of NoShameitis, not only attests that he is in “excellent cognitive and physical health,” but also that he has an Adonis-like physique.
So, that means everything is great, right?
Not quite.
Because, between the lines, he inadvertently offers a troubling diagnosis of Trump’s mental health.
It is buried in this sentence, which has received quite a bit of attention on social media because, well, you will see: “President Trump’s days include participation in multiple meetings, public appearances, press availability, and frequent victories in golf events.”
Obviously, the point of including that last part was not to show that the president is physically active; it was supposed to placate his gigantic and fragile ego.
What is disturbing about this is that Barbabella felt compelled to add it.
He could just have written “the president also plays golf all the time,” which would be not only true but also much more relevant to Trump’s health than whether he wins or loses (in part because he cheats).
But this isn’t about Trump’s physical wellbeing; it is about making him feel good, which is the primary goal of every single person in his orbit.
There is nobody in the White House who will tell him a hard truth if they think he is not going to want to hear it… whether that’s about his actual weight or that his tariffs will prove to be disastrous for the US economy.
The implication is that everybody in Trump’s entourage is (subconsciously) aware that he is mentally ill and they all cater to that mental illness. Obviously, they wouldn’t put it that way, but this is a perfect example.
A president’s health is really important, and the public deserves an unvarnished look at how Trump is doing. However, that is not what Barbabella, a doctor who rose to the rank of White House physician, is offering.
And, by refusing to do so out of concern that he might offend Trump, he is saying a lot more about the president’s (mental) health than he otherwise could in a three-page memo.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
