Brian Stelter Defends Media Speculation Over Trump’s Mental State: ‘He is Getting Worse’
CNN’s Brian Stelter used his latest Reliable Sources monologue to defend the media’s role in asking questions about President Donald Trump’s mental health.
Stelter began by saying Trump’s conduct is “getting worse,” citing “the contradictions, the lies, the complete rejection of reality.” After noting that George Conway and Anthony Scaramucci both impugned Trump’s well-being lately, Stelter noted that Trump’s actions are frequently characterized by the media as “erratic, volatile, unstable, but rarely are the words and actions covered as a whole and rarely do they take it to the next level.”
While he acknowledged that Trump’s critics call him insane all the time, Stelter argued that “it’s possible to have a fully fact-based conservation about this. In fact, it’s not just possible, its necessary.”
From there, Stelter said there was a “widespread recognition that Trump’s behavior is getting worse,” but he also argued that the media doesn’t do enough to “connect the dots” between Trump’s most off-the-rails moments.
My intro to Sunday's @ReliableSources: He is getting worse. We can all see it. It's happening in public. But it's a very hard story to cover. pic.twitter.com/287Fzk65AJ
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 25, 2019
“It’s a lot harder to cover concerns about the president’s well being because it’s really a series of questions that no one is able to answer,” Stelter said. “Why does he lie so often? Is there a method to the madness or is something wrong? Is he suffering from some sort of illness? It’s questions, questions and then just more questions, no satisfying answers.”
Stelter concluded by acknowledging the aversion for people to diagnose Trump without a medical degree or to make judgments on his condition from afar. However, he argued that the point is such assessments aren’t necessary to recognize a cause for concern.
“So something is wrong. There are lots of theories about what it is. There are some doctors who think they know. Others say we shouldn’t speculate. There are ethical questions about having this conversation at all. But we can’t tiptoe around it anymore. We’ve got to talk about this.”
Watch above, via CNN.
