New York Times reports on growing concerns that Trump is 'clearly insane'

The New York Times has published a major investigation into the renewed debate around Donald Trump’s mental fitness, finding that the questions being asked are no longer confined to Democrats, liberal psychiatrists or political opponents – but are now being raised by his own former White House lawyers, his ex-press secretary, and prominent figures on the American right who once defended him loyally.

The NYT piece, published on Monday, catalogues a series of recent incidents that have turbocharged what the paper describes as “the crazy-like-a-fox-or-just-plain-crazy debate” that has followed Trump for a decade. They include his threat that “a whole civilization will die tonight” during the Iran war, his midnight attack on Pope Leo XIV calling the first American pope “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” his posting of an image depicting himself as a Jesus-like figure before deleting it, and a string of factual errors and non-sequiturs that former and current officials describe as alarming.

The White House rejected such assessments, saying Trump is sharp and keeping opponents on edge. But the accumulation of behaviour documented by the Times has prompted a level of public debate about a sitting president’s stability that historians say has no real precedent in modern times.

What former allies told the New York Times

The most politically significant element of the Times investigation is not what Democrats are saying – they have long questioned Trump’s fitness – but what people from his own political and professional world are now saying on the record.

Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer during Trump’s first term, told journalist Jim Acosta that the president is “a man who is clearly insane” and that his recent string of belligerent, middle-of-the-night social media posts “highlights the level of his insanity.”

Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary who worked closely with Trump, wrote online last week that “he’s clearly not well.”

Candace Owens, the far-right podcaster who spent years as one of Trump’s most vocal defenders, called him “a genocidal lunatic.” Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and founder of Infowars, said Trump “does babble and sounds like the brain’s not doing too hot.”

Most strikingly, the Times notes that Marjorie Taylor Greene – the Georgia Republican who built her political career on absolute loyalty to Trump before recently breaking with him – called his Iran civilisation threat “not tough rhetoric, it’s insanity” and publicly advocated using the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.

Trump responded to these critics in a lengthy social media post calling them “stupid people” with “Low IQs” and adding: “They’re NUT JOBS, TROUBLEMAKERS, and will say anything necessary for some ‘free’ and cheap publicity.” The Times observed that the post did not exactly radiate calm stability.

The polling the Times cites

The paper backs its reporting with substantial polling data. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in February found that 61% of Americans think Trump has become more erratic with age and just 45% say he is “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges” – down from 54% in 2023. A YouGov poll found that 49% of Americans deem Trump too old to be president, up from 34% in February 2024.

Trump is already the oldest president ever inaugurated and approaches his 80th birthday.

The specific incidents the Times documents

The NYT piece compiles a detailed list of statements and episodes that go beyond the Iran war rhetoric. The Times reports that Trump has repeatedly claimed his father was born in Germany – his father was born in the Bronx. He has told a story on multiple occasions about his uncle, an MIT professor, supposedly teaching the Unabomber – a claim with no basis in fact. He has confused Greenland with Iceland and has repeatedly boasted of ending a fictional war between Cambodia and Azerbaijan, apparently meaning the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The Times also catalogues a series of apparently random digressions: an eight-minute ramble about poisonous snakes in Peru at a Christmas reception, a long tangent during a cabinet meeting about Sharpie pens, and an interruption of an Iran war briefing to praise the White House drapes.

Most recently, the paper notes, Trump declared that Iran’s “New Regime President” was “much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors” – apparently unaware that Iran has the same president it had before the war.

Democrats and the 25th Amendment

Democratic politicians have been blunter still. Senator Chuck Schumer called Trump “an extremely sick person.” Representative Hakeem Jeffries described him as “unhinged” and “out of control.” Representative Ted Lieu called him “batshit crazy.”

Representative Jamie Raskin wrote to the White House physician requesting a formal evaluation, citing “signs consistent with dementia and cognitive decline” and behaviour he described as “increasingly incoherent, volatile, profane, deranged, and threatening.”

None of this is likely to have any practical effect. The 25th Amendment requires cabinet approval to remove a president – and Trump’s cabinet has shown no willingness to consider such a step.

Strategy or symptoms?

The Times presents both sides. Trump’s defenders argue this is deliberate strategy – the madman theory associated with Nixon, in which projecting unpredictability serves as a diplomatic tool. Trump himself once told Nikki Haley, his first-term UN ambassador: “Make them think I’m crazy” in reference to North Korea. He told his then-attorney general: “Do you know what the secret is of a really good tweet? Just the right amount of crazy.”

But when the Times asked Trump directly about his “a whole civilisation will die tonight” post, he said: “I was willing to do it” – appearing to disavow the strategic-performance defence entirely, at least in that instance.

What historians told the Times

Princeton historian Julian Zelizer told the paper that the current situation surpasses even the Nixon era. “Other than Nixon, there has never been this level of concern over time,” he said. But crucially, unlike the 1970s, “so much of this is playing out in public” through social media and television.

The Times also notes a crucial difference from Trump’s first term: the institutional guardrails are gone. “When he does what he does, everyone around him keeps their eyes to the floor and says nothing,” Zelizer told the paper. “Unlike the first term, they don’t even seem to manoeuvre behind the scenes to stop him.”

John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff in his first term, bought a book by 27 psychiatrists called “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” to try to understand his boss – and concluded that he was mentally ill. There is no one like Kelly in the current administration.

Zelizer’s final observation to the Times may be the most revealing of all. “There is an element of American politics in the age of polarisation, particularly within the Republican Party, that likes this style of leadership,” he said. “What can be more anti-establishment than someone who is willing to be out of control?”

The original New York Times investigation can be read at nytimes.com.