A psychiatrist made a frightening prediction on Wednesday about the rest of President Donald Trump's second term during a new podcast interview.
Dr. John Gartner, a psychiatrist and former professor at Johns Hopkins University, told Hugh Dougherty on a new episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast" that Rep. Thomas Massie's (R-KY) primary defeat on Tuesday may have emboldened Trump to do something that was once considered unthinkable. Trump may make the call to launch a nuclear strike in Iran or elsewhere, and there may not be anyone left around him who can stop it, he said.
"I know sometimes people accuse me of laughing. I'll try to laugh a little less for this strip, because I really believe that we are going to wake up one morning and he will have launched a first nuclear strike," Gartner said. "I believe that this is going to happen because he wants to do it."
Gartner has frequently said Trump exhibits signs of someone suffering from frontotemporal dementia, a condition that significantly impacts someone's decision-making abilities. While Gartner has not examined the president, he said he feels confident about his diagnosis because of how seemingly disinhibited Trump has become.
"He no longer has the frontal lobe to give him the restraint, inhibition, and judgment that would cause him to inhibit himself," Gartner said. "And he now has a yes-man cabinet of true believers and psychopaths who are not going to be a backstop. We don't have General Mattis, we don't have John Kelly, we don't have Rex Tillerson. There are no more adults in the room."
"And in fact, we just had a primary last night. Massie has been thrown out. There were literally no men or women in elected political office as a Republican who isn't blindly lockstep following him," Gartner continued. "So I think people need to really get their minds around this. This is going to happen."