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The Truth About Donald Trump’s Sanity

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20.05.2026

President Donald Trump has labeled numerous Americans—from Republican lawmakers to patriotic policy experts—as “stupid” and even “treasonous.”

Such behavior has led many to question Trump’s sanity and to offer the President some labels in turn, including “unhinged,” “lunatic,” and “clearly insane.”

It is easy to understand why Trump’s erratic actions and head-spinning reversals have raised questions about his mental health. For instance, on social media, Trump posts manic and divisive conspiracy theories, false allegations, and insults against his adversaries. Some former associates and partisan rivals even suggest Trump has experienced a pronounced cognitive and emotional decline. 

But as a long-standing critic of Donald Trump’s leadership impact, and as someone who has known him for over 30 years, I assert that he is no “crazier” than he ever was. Trump’s penchant for exaggeration, self-promotion, and misrepresentation is hardly new. 

These traits have long been chronicled, including in Tim O’Brien’s bold prophetic Trump Nation: The Art of Being the Donald; Maggie Haberman’s The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America; and David K. Johnston’s The Making of Donald Trump. 

And nearly a decade ago, the book edited by psychiatrist Bandy Lee entitled The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, produced 27 mental health experts who questioned Trump’s fitness for high office. These experts suggested Trump showed signs of narcissism, sociopathic tendencies, and a fixation on the haunting legacy of his punishing father.

I have known Donald Trump for decades—longer than many members of the first or second Trump Administrations have known him. Trump seemed almost comically delusional to me in the mid-1990s when I joined Steve Forbes and his publisher, Jeff Cunningham, to visit the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, which Trump had acquired in 1985.

Built a century ago by cereal heiress and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post, the 20-acre property with its 126-room, 62,500-square-foot Gilded Age mansion seemed to be the ideal venue to launch a new high-end resort. At the........

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