Dr. Allen Frances, former Chair of Psychiatry at Duke University, told CNN’s Brian Stelter that calling President Donald Trump “crazy” was “a terrible insult” to people with mental illnesses.
During a Sunday morning segment of CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” Frances went on to claim that Trump could be more damaging in this century than Hitler, Stalin and Chairman Mao were in the last. (RELATED: CNN Host Questions Trump’s Mental Health: ‘Is He Suffering From Some Sort Of Illness?’)
WATCH:
Frances joined the discussion to rebut Yale psychiatrist Dr. Bandy Lee, who co-authored a book about potential mental health issues in the president, and began by claiming that calling Trump “crazy” presented several issues.
“Well, I think that medicalizing politics has three very dire consequences,” he began. “The first is that it stigmatizes the mentally ill. I’ve known thousands of patients, almost all of them are well-behaved well-mannered good people. Trump is none of these. Lumping the mentally ill with Trump is a terrible insult to the mentally ill and they have enough problems and stigma as it is.”
Frances went on to claim that calling the president crazy was a bit of a copout because it “hides the fact that we’re crazy for having elected him and even crazier for allowing his crazy policies to persist.”
“Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin and Mao were in the last century. He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were,” Frances continued. “He needs to be contained but he needs to be contained by attacking his policies, not his person.”