If even a fraction of the medical warnings about Donald Trump are true, silence is no longer prudence. It is negligence.
Published: 32 minutes ago President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One, Friday, May 15, 2026, as he returns from a trip to Beijing, China.
in Gibraltar as Donald Trump escalated tensions with Iran, and for the first time in generations, the world must seriously contemplate whether a psychologically deteriorating president could order a nuclear strike that nobody around him would stop. A ballistic missile submarine is not diplomatic theater. It is the most survivable leg of America’s nuclear arsenal, built to deliver civilization-ending force. The Pentagon rarely publicizes these deployments, which is precisely why this one mattered.
It was a warning. It was a signal. It was a reminder that the machinery of annihilation is already in motion. At the same moment military pressure intensified, physicians and psychologists again publicly warned that Trump appears to exhibit signs associated with behavioral variant, a degenerative disorder affecting judgment, impulse control, aggression and personality.
These experts have not personally examined Trump, and his allies fiercely reject their conclusions. Several medical experts argue Trump shows signs of accelerating cognitive and neurological decline. They cite verbal confusion, repetitive speech, emotional volatility, impaired reasoning, grandiosity, disinhibition and erratic behavior. The American nuclear command structure was designed during the Cold War for speed, not hesitation.
The president possesses sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. Congress does not approve the launch. The courts do not intervene. Cabinet officers do not vote.
Military personnel are expected to execute lawful orders rapidly and decisively. That system assumes rationality. It also assumes emotional stability, cognitive competence and strategic restraint. Republicans once insisted character mattered.
They spoke endlessly about temperament, discipline, morality and judgment. Today, many of those same officials stare silently at behavior they would have denounced in any Democratic president. Trump rages, threatens, rambles, obsesses and escalates. Our own eyes see it every day.
The question is no longer whether the behavior exists. The question is why Republican leaders pretend not to see it. This crisis did not emerge from nowhere. America and Britain helped create the bitterness that still defines relations with Iran.
In 1953, the United States and Britain backed the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, after he nationalized Iranian oil interests. None of this excuses the brutality of the Iranian regime. But history matters because reckless leaders erase complexity and replace it with fury. That combination becomes catastrophic when paired with unilateral war powers.
In practical terms, no reliable mechanism guarantees an impulsive nuclear order will be stopped once issued. That is precisely why this moment is so dangerous. Trump spent years purging dissent, humiliating independent officials and rewarding obedience above competence. Eventually, someone salutes and executes the order.
The Republican Party watched the purge happen in real time. Officials who once portrayed themselves as guardians of constitutional order now behave like frightened employees protecting a volatile employer. Fear replaced principle. Submission replaced patriotism.
Silence replaced courage. The Constitution already contains an answer. The 25th Amendment permits the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to declare a president unable to discharge the powers and duties of office. Congress also retains impeachment authority.
Republicans do not need certainty about dementia to recognize unacceptable risk. Nuclear command authority is the one responsibility on Earth where instability, impulsiveness and deteriorating judgment cannot be dismissed as personality quirks or political style. Millions of innocent people could die because one unstable man refuses to lose and one political party refuses to stop him.
An American nuclear submarine surfaced in Gibraltar as Donald Trump escalated tensions with Iran, and history may remember this moment as the point when America stopped fearing enemies beyond its borders and started fearing instability within. A nation cannot remain safe when fear silences Congress, ambition corrupts the Cabinet and cowardice paralyzes a political party. The danger is no longer hypothetical. The warnings are no longer isolated.
The consequences are no longer unimaginable. If Republicans still possess the constitutional courage they once claimed as their birthright, they must act now, act publicly and act before an impulsive president turns personal obsession into global catastrophe.is a longtime resident of Alaska and California. He has held financial management positions in government and private organizations, and is now retired and a full-time opinion writer. He served in the late 1960s in the Peace Corps as a teacher.
You can find more of his commentaries atThe Anchorage Daily News welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email
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