Sarah Sanders: Americans who aren't "celebrating" Trump are "mentally unfit"

Donald Trump and his allies are fiercely resisting the allegations in Michael Wolff’s explosive new book, “Fire and Fury,” that Trump lacks the basic mental competence for the day-to-day functions of the presidency — a question that even before the book’s release, was being hotly debated.

But White House attempts to beat back the allegations are not going well.

Appearing on Fox News to discuss the book’s charges of Trump’s unfitness, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders essentially resorted to the argument of “I know you are, but what am I?”

KILMEADE: That’s the president’s position on that. What’s yours?

SANDERS: Look, I think it’s absolutely insane to think all of these individuals, reporters and others, who suddenly have a medical degree and think that they can diagnose somebody, many times who they’ve never even had a conversation with. It’s absolutely outrageous to make these types of accusations, and it’s simply untrue, and it’s sad that people are going and making these desperate attempts to attack the president. What I think is really mentally unstable is people that don’t see the positive impact that this president is having on the country. The economy is booming, we’re crushing ISIS, day after day things are getting better for Americans all over this country. And I think it’s really sad that these people don’t see that, and that they’re not celebrating and trying to join in the president’s efforts to turn our country around.

For Sanders to engage in pearl-clutching about the propriety of speculating on the president’s mental health based on concrete examples of erratic behavior — not to mention the concerns of Trump’s own family — and then turn around and impugn the mental health of people for politically disagreeing with Trump, is so self-servingly hypocritical as to be downright incoherent.

Trump is a historically unpopular president, and a majority of Americans neither voted for him nor approve of the job he’s doing. They also have deep concerns about how he got to the White House and what he’s doing there. That doesn’t make them “mentally unfit.”

There is, by the very virtue of our democracy, room to criticize Trump’s economic and social priorities, and just as much room in empirical evidence to dispute that Trump’s actions as president did anything to improve the economy or defeat ISIS.

Sanders will say anything in an attempt to distract the American people from their legitimate concerns with the man occupying the White House. All she does is invite the scrutiny equally onto herself.