Trump mental health: 30 senior US doctors declare president mentally unfit
BMJ 2026; 393 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.s905 (Published 11 May 2026)
Thirty US psychiatrists and other doctors specialising in mental health have signed a statement declaring President Donald Trump mentally unfit to serve, warning that his ability to launch nuclear weapons is a “danger” to the world.
The signatories say that Trump’s behaviour over the past year has shown “objectively observable signs of serious medical concern.”
They cited examples of his “marked deterioration in cognitive functioning,” “episodes of apparent somnolence during critical public proceedings,” “severely impaired judgment and impulse control,” and “significant loss of self-control,” as well as “grandiose and delusional beliefs, including assertions of infallibility, imagery of himself as Pope suggestive of a divine mission.”
The doctors called for Trump’s immediate removal from office, arguing that he presents a “clear and present danger” to the whole world.
“It is our expert opinion that Donald J Trump is mentally unfit to be the president of the United States and that steps to remove him from office must be undertaken with the greatest urgency,” they said.
The letter invokes the 25th amendment of the US constitution, which provides a mechanism for the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare that the president is unable to discharge the powers of his office and for the vice president to assume these powers.
“If we were called upon under the 25th amendment to judge the president’s present ability to discharge the duties of his office, we would have to conclude that he lacks the capacity to do so,” the signatories wrote.
The US senate offices of Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed, two Democratic senators from Rhode Island, submitted the statement—seen by The BMJ—for inclusion in the US Congressional Record.
One of the signatories of the statement was Henry David Abraham, emeritus professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine.
“What motivates my group of physicians now is the buildup of psychiatric symptoms in a person who has the sole authority to launch a nuclear weapon, and has now threatened genocide against an adversary in a time of war,” he told The BMJ.
He was referencing Trump’s 7 April 2026 post on Truth Social regarding the ongoing conflict with Iran, in which the president said, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
Abraham added, “Symptoms of concern are grandiosity without guardrails, paranoia, impulsivity, vindictiveness, easy misperception of being harmed, moments of omnipotence, and most frightening, uncontrolled rage in a man who controls nuclear weapons without oversight.”
Bandy Lee, president of the World Mental Health Coalition, is another psychiatrist who signed the statement.
“It is now urgent that we all step up to meet the reality of the situation—which transcends politics to concern the very safety and survival of the human species, because of the nuclear arsenals the president has at his sole command, with no formal way to countermand it,” she told The BMJ.
“Medical professionals have a societal ethical obligation to protect the public’s health and wellbeing.”
The signatories claimed that the declaration was not a political statement. “It is a medical one, made by individuals holding both conservative and liberal ideologies, identifying as both Republicans and Democrats, from different backgrounds, races, ethnicities, and religions,” they wrote.
“In keeping with our professional ethics, and for those of us who are physicians, with the Declaration of Geneva—the successor to the Hippocratic oath that binds us to the humanitarian principles of medicine since the Nuremberg trials—we are compelled to warn of a president of the United States who is increasingly a danger to the public.”
Prudence Gourguechon, a clinical psychiatrist and psychoanalyst based in Chicago and a past president of the American Psychoanalytic Association, who works as an expert witness in psychiatry, was also a signatory.
“It’s important to have some documented opinion from psychiatrists and mental health professionals that he is unfit to be a leader and let the politicians take that and do what they will,” she told The BMJ.
“We give opinions to the court, and this is an opinion to the court of public opinion, particularly legislators who might have some capacity to do something about invoking the 25th amendment.”
Other signatories include Jennifer Downey, clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, James Merikangas, neuropsychiatrist and clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University School of Medicine, and John Pastore, professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.
The White House was approached for comment.
