A psychiatrist needs...

Mika Brzezinski: A psychiatrist needs to examine Trump

By Nick Gass

The time has come for a mental health professional to take a look at Donald Trump on the air, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski said Monday during a frank discussion of the Republican nominee's well-being.

Brzezinski began "Morning Joe" by noting tweets sent from Trump's account Saturday over the death of basketball star Dwyane Wade's cousin from gun violence in Chicago in which he declared that African-American voters will support him, pointing to the shooting as a symptom that he will solve.

"Morning Joe" devoted a significant portion of its opening block to discussing Trump's mental health, a day after President Barack Obama's former campaign manager David Plouffe described him as a "psychopath."

"You know, I think at other stages of other campaigns a network might be snarky and like get a psychiatrist out," Brzezinski said, after former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean said Trump exhibited traits of narcissism.

Brzezinski, who Trump has called "crazy" and "neurotic," remarked that "it's time to hear from somebody in the mental health community, to look at this person who has been on television for months and to give us a sense of what we have going on here."

"And, I'm sorry, let's just not—let’s stop pretending we're dealing with someone who we can completely understand," Brzezinski said. "And when you see someone who you think has problems, you know it. And there's not anybody at this table who doesn't think he has some sort of problem. Let's ask the questions. Let's do this at this point. Let's set up someone and ask the … questions."

Brzezinski then asked, "Does anyone think that's completely outlandish and only because I have some sort of weird, snarky slant to it and I want to be smart? I think there’s an issue there."

"First of all, a psychiatrist cannot come on and diagnose somebody," co-host Joe Scarborough said.

"No, but they can talk about the character traits that we are seeing repetitively here," Brzezinski offered.

Plouffe misspoke, Scarborough added, suggesting that he should have said "sociopath."

When Princeton professor Eddie Glaude Jr. urged caution in describing Trump as either, Brzezinski remarked, "I don't want to describe him as anything."

"When we do that we kind of suggest that he is this singular figure. Right? That something's wrong with him," Glaude explained. "When we do that, it makes it easier for us to kind of account for him. In fact, when we see all of these folks who are supporting Trump, we hear all of this stuff all around the country. And we can't say that he's just, something’s mentally wrong with him as an easy way to dismiss him."

Brzezinski responded, "I've been asked hundreds of times."

"I want to understand more fundamentally, right. What's going on in the country that would lead us to have him as an option in the first place," Glaude said.

Former Ted Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler suggested later in the segment that all candidates should have full mental health evaluations as a condition of service.

"Well, here's the thing, though. We look at mental health much differently than we did in year's past. We don't require people to use firearms and serve in the military with mental health issues and we do require it, well I don't know if we require it, but we always have seen presidential medical records," Tyler said. "Why not, why not a mental health evaluation?"

Brzezinski, seizing upon that question, added, "also, it shouldn't be something that is in the shadows."

"Mental health is just like diabetes or any other physical health. This is not something I'm making a joke about," Brzezinski said. "I'm very serious. And I've been asked hundreds of times and so have you," she said, turning to Scarborough.

Her co-host then brought up the historical example of psychiatrists declaring GOP nominee Barry Goldwater unfit for office in 1964, which led to the American Psychiatric Association to make a rule against professionals from making diagnoses about public figures they have not personally evaluated.

"Totally agree, but we can ask someone very high up in the mental health community about traits we have seen repeatedly over time," Brzezinski responded, adding minutes later that she was not calling on a mental health professional to make an on-air diagnosis. "That is never what I meant when we had this conversation. But at this point I have been asked so many times that I think it's worth asking someone in the mental health community if this is someone you'd want to -- are these signs of something that perhaps could lead to a diagnosis? We've seen enough of him. It's repetitive. It's consistent."

Scarborough took more generously to that idea of bringing on mental health professionals who can "describe certain traits in people and then have them talk about, like—"

"I think we're there," Brzezinski said, to which her co-host followed, "it doesn't have to be about Donald Trump," suggesting a fictional name of "Amnesty Don."

Amid laughter, Brzezinski remarked, "I don't think it's funny.

"I think it's easier for us and safer for us to infer from his actions and words something about his character," Glaude said. "It's easier for us to stay on that ground than to try to attribute something to his mental health."

Scarborough said, "Exactly."

"But is there anyone here at this table who has not been asked about it?" Brzezinski pressed.

"We've all been asked. Even by our children," Scarborough said, as he tried to make the tease for the commercial break.

Brzezinski responded, "Sorry, that's just the way it goes. It's the truth. I'm neurotic."

"Some people are saying that," Bloomberg Politics' John Heilemann deadpanned.

"That I'm neurotic?" Brzezinski asked. "Well, that's accurate."

Scarborough remarked, "That's going back a long ways."

"That's like yesterday's news," Brzezinski said.

"You don't have to have a sociopath tweet that. Right? Not like I don't know who would. But if a sociopath did. Some people would say if they did, you know. But anyway," Scarborough said.