No medical degree required, for sure.
Nonetheless, here’s a related one:
Would the Air Force Let Airman Trump Near a Nuclear Weapon?
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As a psychiatrist for the United States Air Force, one of my responsibilities was evaluating the mental stability of airmen who handled nuclear weapons, using the standards laid out in what is called the Nuclear Personnel Reliability Program. There is no need to justify why our military would take every precaution necessary to ensure that the men and women in uniform handling nuclear weapons were fit to do so, whether they were in charge of a missile silo or loading nuclear bombs onto aircraft — or giving the orders to them, on up the chain of command. Strangely, the commander-in-chief, the one who would decide when and how to use those weapons, is the only individual in the chain who is not subject to the ongoing certification under the program.
According to the program, or P.R.P., personnel who handle nuclear weapons are held to higher standards of physical and mental readiness than other personnel, and rightfully so. The Department of Defense Directive 5210.42 states: “Only those personnel who have demonstrated the highest degree of individual reliability for allegiance, trustworthiness, conduct, behavior, and responsibility shall be allowed to perform duties associated with nuclear weapons, and they shall be continuously evaluated for adherence to P.R.P. standards.”
On Tuesday the White House physician, Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, gave the president a clean bill of health. And no doubt, by many standards, Mr. Trump is in decent shape. But the standards for a person’s physical and mental health are a different matter from his fitness to oversee our nuclear arsenal. What if President Trump were, instead, Airman Trump, and was to be assessed under the program’s guidelines; would I certify him as “P.R.P. ready” to work in the vicinity of nuclear weapons?
I have not had the opportunity to examine the president personally, but warning signs abound. What if I had reliable outside information that Airman Trump displayed erratic emotions? That I saw very clearly that he was engaging in cyberbullying on Twitter? That he had repeatedly made untruthful or highly distorted statements? That his language implied he engaged in sexually abusive behavior? That he appeared paranoid about being surveilled or persecuted by others, that he frequently disregarded or violated the rights of others?
These are the sorts of things that set off alarms for Air Force psychiatrists. I certainly could not certify him as “P.R.P. ready” without more extensive psychological evaluation.
It does not take a former Air Force psychiatrist to point out that our country finds itself in a place unlike any we’ve ever been before. Saturday morning’s alarm in Hawaii, as residents read alerts that incoming ballistic missiles were on their way, is a wakeup call to the very real danger we’re facing. Global tension and angst is significantly heightened.
We’ve been here a few times before, but unlike those other times our commander-in-chief adds, without equivocation, to this angst almost daily with his words and actions. We have always assumed that the person at the top has the mental fitness to meet whatever standards the Air Force set for the rest of the chain of command. What keeps me up at night? The realization that, at the worst possible time, we have a chief executive whom I believe would probably fail the P.R.P.
The topic of presidential fitness and cognitive decline has always been a legitimate issue. The ability for the Executive Office to function effectively and without exposing the American people to undue danger relies on the mental faculties of the one person inhabiting its walls. Former President Jimmy Carter pointed this out in an article he wrote for The Journal of the American Medical Association in 1994, in which he warned that our country is in “continuing danger” from the possibility that a president could become disabled “particularly by a neurological illness.” Revelations that President Ronald Reagan may have had early-stage Alzheimer’s while he was president adds to these concerns.
It’s unlikely that the military will act on its own to require the president to submit to an Air Force psychiatrist’s evaluation. But there are other options. A bill in the House, with support in the Senate, called the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017, explicitly prevents any president from initiating a nuclear first strike without Congressional approval. This should be common sense for any politician to support, because it assures that the checks and balances intended by the framers of the Constitution remain intact. But equally important, it remedies a glaring failure within the nuclear chain of command and mitigates one of the greatest dangers of our nuclear ages: the possibility of an unhinged president executing a calamitous decision that endangers millions of Americans, and potentially millions of others around the globe.
No president, including Mr. Trump, should have the unilateral power to begin a nuclear war. Congress must protect the American people, and taking away the option of an impulsive first strike nuclear attack is a clear and sane way to prevent a dangerous and insane result.
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