Politics

Psychiatrist Who Raised Concerns About Trump’s Mental Health Wants To ‘Contain’ Him For An Evaluation

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Justin Caruso Contributor
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Yale psychiatry professor Bandy Lee has been raising concerns about President Trump’s mental health for over a year and suggested in a new interview that Trump should be physically contained for an “urgent evaluation” to determine his mental state.

In a Vox interview published Saturday, reporter Eliza Barclay asks Lee, “Okay, so you’re calling for an evaluation; you’re serious about that. How could he possibly be evaluated, since it seems like he wouldn’t voluntarily do it?”

Lee responded, “We encounter this often in mental health. Those who most require an evaluation are the least likely to submit to one. 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. So in an emergency, neither consent nor confidentiality requirements hold. Safety comes first. What we do in the case of danger is we contain the person, we remove them from access to weapons, and we do an urgent evaluation.”

She continued, “This is what we have been calling for with the president based on basic medical standards of care.”

Lee then said that doing this would look too much like a “coup.”

She said, “Surprisingly, many lawyer groups have actually volunteered, on their own, to file for a court paper to ensure that the security staff will cooperate with us. But we have declined, since this will really look like a coup, and while we are trying to prevent violence, we don’t wish to incite it through, say, an insurrection.”

The professor has been promoting the idea that Donald Trump needs a psychiatric evaluation publicly and has been boosted by prominent mainstream media outlets like CNN and MSNBC. She has met with a number of prominent Democratic lawmakers about her claims. (RELATED: How The Media Mainstreamed A Democratic Conspiracy Theory)

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