HEALTH: Is something wrong with the president's health?

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 2026

Cognition v. "mental illness:" This morning, it has come to this, in this most rapidly changing of all possible worlds.  

The person whose health has been in question has granted an interview to The Telegraph's Connor Stringer. Dual headline included, this is the way the Stringer report begins: 

Trump interview: I am strongly considering pulling out of Nato
Exclusive: US president tells The Telegraph alliance is a ‘paper tiger’ and claims UK does not even have a navy

Donald Trump has told The Telegraph he is strongly considering pulling the United States out of Nato after it failed to join his war on Iran.

The US president labelled the alliance a “paper tiger” and said removing America from the defence treaty was now “beyond reconsideration”.

It is the strongest sign yet that the White House no longer regards Europe as a reliable defence partner following the rejection of Mr Trump’s demand that allies send warships to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Mr Trump was asked if he would reconsider the US’s membership of Nato after the conflict.

He replied: “Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by Nato. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.”

He and Vlad are on the same page, as is frequently true. As an aside, we'll mention the fact that there exists in the psychological literature a variety of writings about the so-called "Samson Syndrome"—alternatively, "Samson's Complex"—which you can find described if you simply google around.

At any rate there the president went, threatening to walk out on NATO. Meanwhile, is there some such thing as a British Navy? The leading authority on the subject still seems to think that some entity called "The Royal Navy" continues to exist: 

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom, responsible for defending the UK, the Crown Dependencies, and the Overseas Territories from naval attack or invasion. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King. 

[...]

The Royal Navy maintains a fleet of technologically sophisticated ships, submarines, and aircraft, including two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, four Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines (which carry the Trident strategic nuclear weapons), six Astute-class nuclear-powered attack submarines, six Type 45 guided missile destroyers, seven Type 23 frigates, eight mine-countermeasure vessels and twenty-six patrol vessels. As of December 2025, there are 63 active and commissioned ships (including submarines as well as one historic ship, HMS Victory) in the Royal Navy, plus 9 ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA). There are also four Point-class sealift ships from the Merchant Navy available to the RFA under a private finance initiative, while the civilian Marine Services operate auxiliary vessels which further support the Royal Navy in various capacities. The RFA replenishes Royal Navy warships at sea and, since 2024–25, provides the lead elements of the Royal Navy's amphibious warfare capabilities through its three Bay-class landing ship vessels. It also works as a force multiplier for the Royal Navy, often doing patrols that frigates used to do. However, most of the Royal Navy ships are not actually in a condition for deployment at sea due to lack of seaworthiness. That led the navy to borrow the German frigate Sachsen for a NATO mission in spring 2026. The situation was described by the media and politicians as a national embarrassment.

Presumably, the situation was described that way by some in the media and by some politicians. Aside from that, we're going to let the experts puzzle these matters out—the question of the Samson Syndrome, along with the challenged existence, and state of repair, of the Royal Navy itself. 

For today, NATO is a paper tiger, the sitting president has said—and he has said that Vladimir Putin knows that too. For that reason, the sitting president may pull the United States out of NATO—something he apparently isn't legally entitled to do. 

How simpler things seemed to be last Thursday when, at a televised "cabinet meeting," the president rambled on, for almost five minutes, speaking about the price of a good Sharpie pen.

"It's insane. It's insane," S. E. Cupp said that evening on CNN. Other observers have discussed that day's five-minute ramble about the Sharpies, included MS NOW's Katy Tur and that same channel's Lawrence O'Donnell. 

O'Donnell discussed the president's Sharpie monologue on last Thursday evening's edition of The Last Word. You can watch the tape of O'Donnell's analysis by clicking this link to the videotape provided by the program's web site.

What did O'Donnell say that night? As you'll see if you click that link, the web site offers this two-part thumbnail: 

Lawrence: Trump failed his own self-administered cognitive test while Iran’s regime was watching
MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell describes the Donald Trump the Iranian regime saw today: a wartime president fixated on cognitive tests, presidential pens and Sharpies while nodding off during a Cabinet meeting about war.

In his monologue that evening, O'Donnell discussed the Sharpies too. But before he did, he discussed the president's latest claim about the so-called cognitive tests he has long claimed that he just keeps "acing."  

Over the past six years, the president has repeatedly said that he has aced those challenging cognitive tests in a way few others have ever done. As transcribed by Tommy Christopher at Mediaite, here's part of what he said at last Thursday's cabinet meeting:

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. It starts off with an easy question. And by the time you get to the middle, it gets tougher. By the time you get to the end, very few people can answer those questions. They get very tough mathematical equations and things.

I took it three times. I aced it all three times in front of numerous doctors that I have no idea who they are. And I was told when I went in—they said Dr. Ronnie told me this. My current doctors are fantastic doctors. They said, “Well, if you take it—you know, it’s Walter Reed. It’s essentially a public hospital. And if you do badly, he’s probably going to get out.” But I aced it. I got them all right. And one doctor said, “I’ve never seen anybody get them all right. I’ve been doing the test for twenty years.”

Plainly, nothing can make the sitting president desist from making these claims!

As many others had done before him, O'Donnell ridiculed those claims on last Thursday's evening's program. He then proceeded to mock the president's lengthy discussion of Sharpies. 

As noted above, O'Donnell said the president had "failed his own cognitive test" in his pair of rambles at that day's "cabinet meeting." (We can't really tell you that O'Donnell's suggestion is wrong.)

Last night, at 10:10 p.m., O'Donnell seemed to take a different tack, describing the president as "a madman." (O'Donnell, speaking of the president's apparent current strategy in Iran: "That is how a madman wages war in the 21st century.") 

Out of that aggressive language an important question is born, along with an observation about our American journalism as it's currently practiced:

Back in the simpler days of last week, some observers seemed to be suggesting that the president is suffering some sort of cognitive challenge. On this campus, we have no way of knowing if that's true, but that's what some discussions seemed to suggest. 

Other discussions seemed to suggest something different. Those discussions seemed to suggest the presence of what might be called "mental illness." 

In those discussions, words like "insane" and "madman" began to surface again. Not long before, on March 19, MS NOW's Chris Hayes had said this:

"Every once in a while, you just have to remind yourself the president of the United States is a sociopath." 

That would seem to be a claim about (severe) "mental illness." Around that same time, one of the president's former lawyers had described him as "a demented narcissist" in yet another MS NOW appearance.

O'Donnell has often referred to the president as "delusional." Last night, he went with "madman," then alleged that the president had engaged in "pathological lying" again.

"Madman" isn't a clinical term. At present, neither is "sociopath." Having said that, we'll add his:

Based on the language they used, some of these observers seemed to be alleging some sort of cognitive shortfall. But based on the language other observers used, those observed seemed to be suggesting that the "madman / insane / sociopath" sitting president is afflicted with some version of (significant) "mental illness."

In the Babel of our flailing discourse, various suggestions have been voiced by an array of high-profile observers. We'll leave you today with this observation:

None of those people are medical specialists! Their claims and suggestions could always be accurate, but there's no obvious reason to assume that they actually know what they're talking about.

You've heard us say this before. Our news orgs have all signed on to a sacred pact—a sacred pact which goes like this: 

We will never speak to the medical specialists who, at least as a matter of theory, might have some basic idea what they're talking about!

Is the president suffering a cognitive shortfall? Might he be afflicted with some substantial "mental illness?"

Our journalists and our attorneys bring no expertise to such questions. Meanwhile, what has one trained clinical therapist recently said about all this?  As we continue to seek the president's health, we return to that question tomorrow.

The president wants to exit NATO. Is some sort of medical problem possibly lurking there?

Tomorrow: The clinical therapist's tale

Friday: Colby Hall's intriguing opinion piece