CNN’s Brian Stelter, who criticized other media outlets in 2016 for covering Hillary Clinton’s health issues, claimed Tuesday night that President Trump is mentally “not well” and unfit for office.
Stelter called Trump’s tweets “madness” and argued that Trump’s tweets should count as proof that the president is mentally “not fit for office.”
“When President Trump was inaugurated last January, some columnists started right away to raise concerns about his mental health and fitness for office. In the months that followed, we saw senators like Jeff Flake bring this up, Bob Corker, another name that comes to mind,” Stelter said, before suggesting a “test” for Trump’s tweets.
“We could apply a test to his 16 tweets today. If this were the leader of Germany or China or Brazil, what would we say? How would we cover these tweets? We would say these are the messages from a person who is not well, from a leader who is not fit for office,” Stelter said before host Anderson Cooper pushed back against that characterization.
“The counterargument is that he has a different style and other presidents have tried more diplomatic language, more presidential language vis-a-vis North Korea, and they say look, that didn’t work and this is the way to go,” Cooper said.
Stelter also said he contacted Twitter to see if Trump’s tweet about his nuclear button violated the platform’s terms of service but had yet to receive a response. CNN reporters have previously asked Twitter to rule on whether individual Trump tweets violated the company’s terms of service, although Twitter has sided with Trump every time.
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During the 2016 presidential campaign, Stelter lectured other media outlets at length for asking questions about Hillary Clinton’s health.