Mentally Stable????
Donald Trump oddly pointed to the media’s coverage of Ronald Reagan as the president scrambled to bolster his image as mentally fit, characterizing himself as a “
very stable genius and “being, like, really smart.”
Trump attacked the media in a tweet Saturday for “taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence.” The implication is that concerns about Reagan’s mental health in his administration were off the mark. But they weren’t.
Although White House doctors insisted Reagan was mentally fit, many observers at the time were concerned about his forgetfulness, and some even wondered if he was exhibiting signs of Alzheimer’s in office. Reagan himself even admitted during a televised address on the Iran-Contra scandal that he often
had a hard time remembering things, notes The Washington Post. Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1994, five years after he left the White House.
Reagan’s youngest son, Ron, said in his 2011 book,
My Father at 100, that he believed his dad
showed symptoms of the confusion and forgetfulness of Alzheimer’s while he was president.