WASHINGTON – A “few” Republican senators think President Trump may have mental health issues, according to one Democratic colleague.
“It’s not the majority of them,” said Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). “It’s a few.”
“We all have this suspicion that – you know, that he’s not – he lies a lot,” Franken said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And, you know, that is not the norm for a president of the United States, or, actually, for a human being.”
Franken first leveled the mental health claims on Friday during an interview on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
“There’s a range in what they’ll say,” Franken said of what GOP colleagues reveal behind closed doors. “And some will say that he’s not right mentally. And some are harsher.”
The line drew plenty of laughs.
But Franken added a more serious note: “I haven’t heard a lot of good things, and I’ve heard great concern about the president’s temperament.”
Also Sunday, Franken called Trump’s repeated attacks of Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas” as “racist.”
During a meeting with a handful of senators on Thursday, Trump revived his moniker of the Massachusetts senator.
“Pocahontas is now the face of your party,” Trump reportedly said, making light of Warren’s claim of Native American heritage.
Franken said he would have spoken up if he were in the meeting. “Mr. President, with all due respect, that’s racist. Please stop doing that. I’m on [the Senate] Indian Affairs [Committee]. This is completely unacceptable. You really should stop doing this. It doesn’t serve anybody.”
The former “Saturday Night Live” comedian has evolved into one of the toughest critics of the Trump Administration.
During heated confirmation hearings for Trump’s cabinet nominees, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, it was Franken who often came prepared with the harshest critiques of the nominee’s fitness.
CNN host Jake Tapper channeled one of Franken’s most memorable “Saturday Night Live” characters, Stuart Smalley, in asking whether he’d consider a 2020 presidential run against Trump.
“Is there ever a time, when you hear this buzz, and you’re at home, you look in the mirror and you say to yourself, ‘I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and, doggone it, people like me; maybe I should be president?’”
“No,” Franken said. “That’s never happened.”
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