Fox News cites liver doctor to quiet concerns about Trump's mental fitness

Recently, several members of Congress — including a Republican senator — met with a psychiatrist for a briefing on Trump’s mental health. Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a psychiatry professor from Yale University, told the panel over a two-day period that Trump is “going to unravel, and we are seeing the signs.”

Lee elaborated on what she had discussed in an interview with Politico, noting, “We feel that the rush of tweeting is an indication of his falling apart under stress. Trump is going to get worse and will become uncontainable with the pressures of the presidency.”

The report of the meeting has unnerved the Trump administration. In her daily briefing, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders slammed the stories as “disgraceful and laughable.”

Picking up the ball from there, as he so often does, “Fox & Friends” co-host and Trump apologist Brian Kilmeade discussed the issue in an interview with Sanders. Kilmeade noted that Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, “a doctor,” has met with Trump multiple times and “he says there’s no doubt about it, he is mentally fit to be president of the United States.” Kilmeade added, “He went to school for that.”

Cassidy did not go to school for that.

KILMEADE: By the way, Sen. Bill Cassidy, just for the record, is a doctor. Met with the president multiple times, and he says there’s no doubt about it, he is mentally fit to be president of the United States. I’ll go with his suggestion, because he’s had the face to face, and he went to school for that.

SANDERS: Absolutely. I agree.

Kilmeade’s assessment was based on an interview he had conducted the day before with Cassidy on his radio show. Cassidy’s positive assessment of Trump’s mental health was not based on a medical examination of Trump, but rather, was based on a partisan Republican senator praising a member of his own party.

And while Cassidy is a doctor, he is not a specialist in mental health.

He worked as a liver specialist at LSU Earl K. Long Hospital in Baton Rouge. Without a medical examination, Cassidy shouldn’t be regarded as anything more than a casual observer on the state of Trump’s liver, let alone his mental capacity and state.

He’s just a Republican who likes the leader of the Republican Party, which is his right, but it doesn’t have any of the medical credibility that Fox News wishes it did.

Cassidy’s widely panned health care bill — he was the senator publicly humiliated by late night host Jimmy Kimmel for his duplicitousness during the drafting of the legislation — was supported by Trump, and he was returning the favor.

Cassidy insisted in his interview with Kilmeade that Trump’s agenda was great, and that his mental health is being maligned because he doesn’t have the professional demeanor of President Barack Obama.

Americans, observing the patterns of behavior, decisions, and demeanor that Trump has exhibited over the past year are understandably concerned about his mental state and his proximity to the nuclear arsenal. Mental health professionals — people with expertise in the subject — are also concerned.

Fox News citing one of Trump’s fellow travelers, who happens to have an expertise in livers, does nothing to address or assuage those legitimate concerns. It’s just another clump of meaningless propaganda thrown in the air in a desperate attempt to cover up the truth.