Joy Behar tried to get ABC reporter Jonathan Karl to say that President Donald Trump had a mental disorder.
Karl appeared Monday on ABC’s “The View” to discuss his new book, “Front Row at the Trump Show,” and his view of the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Behar, who was broadcasting from home in order to keep social distance from her cohosts and guests, began by suggesting that it was past time to invoke the 25th Amendment.
“Jonathan, it’s Joy. Don’t you think it’s time for the 25th Amendment to be put out there? I mean, he’s crazy. Let’s face it. The guy is nuts,” she said. (RELATED: Andrew Yang Has To Explain To Joy Behar That Ocasio-Cortez Is Too Young To Be VP)
“Well, you know, I’ll leave it to others to decide about that,” Karl said. “But I’ll tell you —”
“I’m deciding right now,” Behar interrupted.
“There you go. One thing I found doing the research to go back, you know, write this book is that Mick Mulvaney, when he became the acting Chief of Staff at the White House, actually recommended a book on a retreat to Camp David called ‘A First-Rate Madness’ which is a book that puts forth the theory that the best leaders in history have been mentally ill,” Karl said.
“You have people like you who think Donald Trump is crazy,” Karl continued, pointing out that the assessment varied from person to person. “You have people who — supporters who think he is a genius.” (RELATED: ‘Don’t Be A Cutie Pie’: Trump Mocks ABC Reporter During Coronavirus Briefing)
“Fine. I said this morning that he has a narcissistic disorder which is a form of mental illness and it’s incurable, okay?” Behar went on.
“Well, there you go,” Karl said again as Behar added something about the president maybe being bipolar.
“I can’t help you with the diagnosis, but I can tell you his Chief of Staff was suggesting to senior staff at the White House that mental illness actually makes for good leaders,” Karl concluded.
The book Mulvaney reportedly recommended, “First-Rate Madness,” was a New York Times bestseller and garnered praise from the Washington Post (“A provocative thesis… Ghaemi’s book deserves high marks for original thinking”) and NPR (“First-Rate Madness will almost certainly be one of the most fascinating books of the year, not just because of the author’s lucid prose and undeniable intelligence, but because of his provocative thesis: ‘For abnormal challenges, abnormal leaders are needed'”).