, it's great to welcome to the program today. Dr. Justin Frank, who's a former professor of Psychiatry at George Washington Medical School with 40 years
of clinical experience also author of three best selling books, including Trump on the couch. Dr.
Frank, it's so great to have you on today, thank you. It's very nice to be here. So listen, let's just start with the obvious. We observe Donald Trump sniffing, we observe slurring
we observe over the weekend. What is almost a son ambulance Trump seeming barely awake. In some cases, we see sometimes the sort of verbal glitches that coincide with a shoulder spasm. Are
these things connected potentially? What do you see, what are the relevant and irrelevant behaviors that you observe?
Everything that you described makes it very clear to me that he needs to have an MRI of brain, he needs to be evaluated. Psychiatric Ally and neurologically, as soon as we can, because everything
else is roughly conjecture. There are certain things that are a troublesome and somewhat potentially obvious to a psychiatrist, which is that he seems to have the signs of an early Fronto, temporal
dementia where people do actually sniff between while talking and they do certain lesser speech and it's something that happens to people, it shouldn't happen, but it does happen to people in their
early 70s. He was late 60s and he's got a family history of the father who had Al hybrids, so there really is a family history of some kind of cerebral issue. If you look at him, his behavior when he's
giving speeches, he has problems word­finding he slurs and speech sometimes he mis­pronounces words and then sort of shakes it off, like this and then gets back on track. He has a lot of trouble in
early stages of what one would call dementia, and that's what I would call it, that's what I will call it.
I think that it's very disturbing in that nobody seems to talk about it except people at yourself, and occasionally people in certain people online like this guy, Tom Joseph rights Aman and different
people, but most of the time and a couple of psychiatrists have commented about it, but I think he needs to be evaluated and I think the sooner the better, I don't know, how to get that point across.
There's no way to really talk about it. Accept on programs like this, but it's really important that somebody evaluate him.
Can you talk a little bit, that I wanna get into the details as we continue, but as people hear you 03/04/20 Page 8 of 17
davidpakmanshow­2020­03­03­commercialfree talking, no doubt, someone will say, "Hey guys, what about the Goldwater rule? What about the
version that medical professionals should have to hypothesizing about a diagnosis without actually evaluating someone in person? Can you talk about that and how it applies to this particular
situation? Well, it applies very clearly. That's actually why I want him evaluated. I'm not making a diagnosis
as much as speculating that he has this potential problem, and he really needs to have a thorough evaluation.
Now, as far as the Goldwater rule is concerned, it was a roll from the American side Patric association set up in 1965 for those who don't know after Barry Goldwater ran against Johnson sued
the American Psychiatric Association. Because there was a... I don't know what you call it, a some kind of a request that was sent out to ask whether or not what
that goal water could be trusted with his hand on the nuclear trigger. And a huge group of psychiatrist said no, but they didn't realize that that that was just based on an observation, it wasn't
based on the thorough assessment. So the rule got it place because the APA lost a lawsuit that's why it got put in. It's not a rule, that's based, so any kind of reason. And it was written in 1965. we now,
we have video, we have all kinds of things to see, and we see Trump constantly. It will be very different if Goldwater were observed the way Trump has been observed.
So I think it's in a relevant role. In fact, I quickly resigned from the APA because of it, about eight or 10 years ago, a little more
even now because I wanted to write these books about... And they're in depth cycle analytic studies. Took me two or three years on each president and they were in depth, so I...
I don't really think much of the little water rule as it were. There are some people, still who cling to it and I think some of the networks get pressured by the APA not to have certain people on.
Although, recently, "Lawrence dons had a few people, a couple of psychiatrists on his show at MSNBC, Dr. Frank, the idea that this might be this behavior could be connected either, to a side
effect from a medication that Donald Trump is taking or some kind of I don't know if recreation as the right word, but some kind of drug use, like a stimulant of some kind or something like that.
Could it be as simple as that, and not anything more? I think it could not be as simple as that. It has to be something more.
This is a person who when you have side effects from stimulants like Adderall or any of the stimulants or even illegal drugs, you don't slow speech the way he does, you don't have trouble with
word finding and the way he does some of the sniffing, maybe yes, but other than, than that, his issues are very much more disturbing. He is unable to pay attention when somebody else is talking,
he's completely disconnected. And I do think that that's an attention problem. He has a long history of a form of ADD, that's never been really properly diagnosed. That's attention deficit disorder.
Don't think it doesn't mean that much. To me, I know a lot of people wanna talk about medmen. I even had a chapter of my book that I was gonna send in all the impediment and I decided not to do
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that just because it was too much conjecture when there's so much right in front of us. One of the things that's so striking is what's going on right now with the corona virus. This is a guy who is not
just ill­prepared, he doesn't even understand what he's talking about and he he contradicts the experts immediately.
In that press conference on Wednesday or whenever it was last week, but he's very disturbed and deserving in terms of his behavior.
I have a chapter on "destructive­ness in the book and that he really has a long history of having a deep conflict between being a builder, which he was originally, and then the Troy always a part of
him that would break things down was really dedicated to destroying things. And in fact, what we have learned since the President... You mean? Yeah, is that a no? In the three
years, you can do a lot of destruction things. I mean, look what's happened to the Constitution? Look what's happening to people's added to tore
the press words a free press, look what's happening to a one, the rule of law. There's a lot of things that he have been going on that are really destructive and I do think that the
con of virus he's in a situation where he's sort of passive 'cause he doesn't know how to think, and he doesn't have the ability to think 'cause he's been so focused on you. The SOC market preserving
himself against impeachment, and all of those things. So I think that unconsciously there's this deep destructive drive that is very concerning because we Americans are gonna be the collateral damage
of his inner conflicts. We've observed sort of anecdotally, that there are sort of two versions of Trump, and you can see
this at press conferences and speeches and it's what we've cook very colloquially called up Trump and Downer, Trump upper Trump is the fast talking a lot of sniping and so on. And so forth, down,
Trump is the guy that seems almost the sleep. Like at the Saturday press conference. Have you noticed that? And is that relevant in some way, I think that the upper tram has to do with when he's
really sign. Oh, it's unbelievable. They have a phone suddenly in the upper Trump is a bad person who's connected when he psychologically connected and plugged into his audience and other
people he can talk faster, quicker, and seems okay. The downer Trump is when he's not connected and not thinking and I really do think that's when he's having more mental problems, like somebody
who is just a loan from a deep sleep, he has a problem making sense of things he has problems understanding he has serious attention. problems if you just look at his face, when he's listening to
other people in the various press conferences he has, it's quite striking, he's like drifting away. When you and I are talking, I feel like I'm connected to you, even though I'm talking a lot here, but
there's a way in which there's a connection or interaction. He doesn't interact with people anyway. Last, the day. Very disturbing what exact... So you mentioned an MRI, what would be the full work
up, so to speak, when someone is exhibiting these symptoms? Well, the full work­up would be first of all an MRI, the second part of the work would be what's
called projective testing. They would do a show like workshop and images and see how he thinks about the various things that he sees what kind of sense he makes of them, how he organizes his
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thoughts. There is another part of neurology where there's a work up that's actually about mechanics, like
doing simple Math, problems reading things, remembering things reciting things back like after the examiner says, a bunch of numbers and then five minutes later, he asked me to repeat the numbers.
There's lots of different tests that are done, help as a person's concentration and whether a person can make sense, they give them simple instructions like a paragraph to read and then to follow it,
which I think he really couldn't do as my sense of him. So the, so that's incredible. And so, but the Montreal Cognitive Assessment would not be what we
would consider a full work up. No, it's not a full work up. It's barely touches the surface. And I don't even think he could have done
as well as it was reported that he did, I don't know how he could do even drawing a clock. I'm actually very worried that this is our president that I see she was elected in part a lot of people
vote ferment still like him a lot because he's irreverent and he likes and people have felt very unsettled for many years that they... And he knows how to break things and he really gives
permission to be angry, to be aggressive, to be assertive and all of those things are still there and him.
The problem is that they're sort of across the board. So the other day, he attacks verbally the two liberal justices on the Supreme Court Sotomayor and with Peter Ginsburg, as if they should
sequester themselves in a case or two, that's involved in them that's a way he's very smart at doing that, he's compulsive. Of doing that, he's an automatically destructive person, so it's not like he's
stupid in a certain way and it's not like he's got a brain you know, it's not clear yet what he's got going on with him, because he's able to repeat he's able to do certain things he's able to get his way,
he's gotten the entire justice judicial system really packed with very conservative judges across the whole federal system, so he's effective at what he's doing... And a person who has demented in early
stages of dementia. They were peak themselves, they're not aware even. He always repeats himself to seven anyway, but they really do repeat themselves in or not even sure that they are repeating
themselves so they'll tell you the same story. You have uncles and a answer to people like they had a dinner table, we're in their old age, they'll tell you the same story. Over and over again. Well,
Trump is like that one does it with very few words and he'll say it over and over and over again, and emphatically and be repetitive. I don't think he should be president, he can be somebody's crazy
uncle in the back room that's Okay, wow. We've been speaking with Dr. Justin Frank of former
professor of Psychiatry at George Washington Medical School Dr. Frank, so great having you on and I appreciate your time, thank you, that's great.