June 9, 2019

Trump Finally Admits His Behavior Is “Not at All ‘Presidential'”

But then, of course, justifies it anyway.

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before leaving the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 20, 2019.Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

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Late Saturday night, President Donald Trump acknowledged that “it is not at all ‘Presidential'” to attack the media the way he had when he criticized MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch, after the news host called Trump a criminal on his Saturday evening show.

 

He may have quickly (and predictably) justified his lack of presidential decorum, but the rare admission that his behavior might be outside the bounds of what’s normally expected of a president promoted a string of responses on Twitter. Most notably, the tweet gave one of his most outspoken adversaries another ripe opportunity to attack the president’s mental health.

George Conway is a lawyer who is married to Kellyanne Conway, one of Trump’s most trusted and longest serving advisers. But George Conway has spent the past year or so attacking his wife’s boss by suggesting that Trump is mentally ill. He often deploys the hashtag #derangedDonald and frequently refers to portions of the Bible of psychiatric diagnoses, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders also known as the DSM-5 referring to the fifth edition, as context for Trump’s more bizarre behaviors. In response, Trump has dubbed Conway “husband from hell” and a “stone cold LOSER.”

On Sunday morning, Conway matched Trump’s tweetstorm against Deutsch with another thread questioning the president’s mental health. “You’re not “presidential” at all, period,” Conway tweeted. “You’re mentally unwell…Do yourself and the country a favor. Resign and seek the psychological treatment you so obviously need.” 

Conway goes on to recommend two books to Trump that attempt to describe his mental state. One of them is Trump on The Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, by Justin A. Frank, a psychiatrist who has made something of a career out of psychoanalyzing presidents including George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In this volume, Frank concludes, “There’s no question that Trump is mentally unfit in ways that make him psychologically unsuited for the presidency; this is in itself a truly alarming turn of events.” 

In no small irony, Frank’s book was blurbed by Deutsch, who set off this recent round of presidential tweets in the first place. “Behind all Trump’s tough guy theatrics, his petty cruelties and bloated ego,” Deutsch wrote, “is a tangled knot of pathologies that should terrify us all.” 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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