President Donald Trump has faced renewed scrutiny after forensic and social psychiatrist Bandy Lee said aspects of his public behaviour could reflect what she described as arrested development or regression. Speaking on MeidasTouch's The Weekend Show on 20 September, Lee also warned of what she called an 'extremely dangerous situation' because of the powers attached to the presidency.
Lee, president of the World Mental Health Coalition, based part of her argument on Trump's recent descriptions of his activities after the 11 September 2001, attacks. Her comments represent her interpretation of publicly observed behaviour and do not constitute an independently established diagnosis of Trump.
Donald Trump's 9/11 Accounts Face Renewed Scrutiny
During an 8 September event honouring emergency responders, Trump said two firefighters lifted him and began running with him because they feared the nearby former U.S. Steel Building, now One Liberty Plaza, might collapse. Trump did not say he had been pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center, despite that version appearing in some subsequent reports.
PolitiFact found contemporary evidence that there were genuine fears One Liberty Plaza could collapse, including an account that Federal Reserve Bank of New York employees were evacuated because of those concerns. However, the fact-checker said it found no account specifically confirming that Trump was present during that episode.
Trump has also said he brought construction workers to assist after the attacks. In an interview broadcast on 6 September, he said he went downtown shortly afterwards with construction workers and that they 'worked long and hard.' Trump was documented near ground zero on 13 September 2001, when he gave interviews and said workers associated with him were helping.
PolitiFact said it found no independent evidence that Trump brought the hundreds of workers he has described over the years. The White House referred questions about the workers to the Trump Organization, which did not respond to PolitiFact's request for comment.
Lee used those disputed accounts to argue that Trump repeatedly places himself at the centre of major national events. She said this reflected what she viewed as a fragile 'sense of self' and compared the behaviour to a young child wanting to be 'king or queen or ruler of the universe.'
She then described such behaviour in an adult as 'abnormal and pathological,' adding that it could stem from 'arrested development' or from someone having 'regressed to that state.' Those remarks were Lee's professional interpretation of Trump's public conduct, not a verified finding about his mental health.
Bandy Lee Links Warning To Presidential Powers
Lee broadened her warning beyond Trump's 9/11 statements to the authority held by a US president, particularly over nuclear weapons. She said the 'extremely dangerous situation' arose, in her view, because there is no simple mechanism to countermand a president's nuclear launch order in the circumstances she was discussing.
She also described Trump as mentally unstable, an assessment the White House has strongly rejected. White House spokesman Davis Ingle told The Independent that medical professionals making what he called 'armchair diagnosis or false speculation for political purposes' were acting improperly. He described Trump as energetic and sharp.
The White House has separately defended Trump's health, while Trump has said he is in excellent condition. Public photographs and video can document appearance or behaviour at particular moments, but they cannot by themselves establish a medical or psychiatric condition.
Lee has for years publicly raised concerns about Trump's fitness for office, including through books and public commentary. Her latest remarks continue that line of argument, but they remain her assessment rather than an independently confirmed medical conclusion.
The factual dispute over Trump's 9/11 accounts can be considered separately. Available reporting confirms that Trump was near ground zero in the days after the attacks and that fears about One Liberty Plaza collapsing were real, while his claims about being carried by firefighters and bringing large numbers of workers remain uncorroborated by the records identified by PolitiFact.
