Vox Editor Calls for Mental Evaluation of President Trump ‘By Force If Necessary’
Vox Science and Health Editor Eliza Barclay on Saturday floated the idea that President Donald Trump should undergo a medical evaluation of his mental capacity “by force if necessary.”
“There is a growing call from a group of psychiatrists — the best medical experts at interpreting aberrant human behavior — for exactly this: an emergency evaluation of the president’s mental capacity, by force if necessary,” she wrote
A Vox spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for clarification about what this “force” might look like.
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Wall Street Journal Editorial Features Editor James Taranto tweeted that it smelled like an open call for a coup d’état.
"By force"? Vox is calling for a coup d'état. pic.twitter.com/1YSoN60OGW
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) January 6, 2018
The broader piece by Barclay focused on one psychiatrist, Bandy Lee, an assistant professor in forensic psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine.
Last October, Lee published a whole book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” which called the president’s mental fitness into question.
Lee, who has taken heat from other psychiatric professionals for speculating about Trump’s mental health without having done her own examination, offered Barclay a bit of explanation about what “forcing” Trump into an evaluation might look like.
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“Those who most require an evaluation are the least likely to submit to one,” she said in the piece. “That is the reason why in all 50 states we have not only the legal authority, but often the legal obligation, to contain someone even against their will when it’s an emergency.”
“This is what we have been calling for with the president based on basic medical standards of care,” she added, saying that she and like-minded psychiatrists have so far refrained from taking any active legal steps to avoid the appearance of “a coup” or fomenting an “insurrection.”
Talk of the president’s mental health — always a prominent topic among anti-Trump liberals — received a boost of new currency with the publication of Michael Wolff’s explosive new book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.”
Despite its numerous factual errors, Wolff’s book quotes multiple White House officials questioning Trump’s mental fitness.
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