President Trump again went author Michael Wolff, for the revelations in the author’s new book, ‘Fire and Fury,’ in a Sunday morning tweet.
‘I’ve had to put up with the Fake News from the first day I announced that I would be running for President. Now I have to put up with a Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author,’ Trump tweeted Sunday. ‘Ronald Reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will I!’
The tweet marked the second time in two days that the president brought up Reagan’s name, in an effort to characterize claims in Wolff’s book about Trump’s mental fitness as media smears and not realistic concerns.
President Trump has twice compared himself to President Reagan in an attempt to characterize claims questioning his mental fitness found in Michael Wolff’s new book as media smears
![On Sunday, President Trump tweeted that he and President Ronald Reagan had the 'same problem' while again saying that Michael Wolff's tome 'Fire and Fury' was a 'fake book.' Both Reagan and Trump have had their capacity to be president challenged](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2018/01/07/16/47DA0D4700000578-5243811-image-a-6_1515341541086.jpg)
On Sunday, President Trump tweeted that he and President Ronald Reagan had the ‘same problem’ while again saying that Michael Wolff’s tome ‘Fire and Fury’ was a ‘fake book.’ Both Reagan and Trump have had their capacity to be president challenged
![When re-elected in 1984, President Ronald Reagan was the oldest man to serve as president. In a 2011 memoir his son Ron Reagan said he saw signs of Alzheimer's years before his dad's diagnosis. President Reagan died of Alzheimer's complications in 2004](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2018/01/07/16/47DB2CD900000578-5243811-image-a-4_1515341320335.jpg)
When re-elected in 1984, President Ronald Reagan was the oldest man to serve as president. In a 2011 memoir his son Ron Reagan said he saw signs of Alzheimer’s years before his dad’s diagnosis. President Reagan died of Alzheimer’s complications in 2004
The two men do share a lot of commonalities, from being entertainers-turned-politicians to being elected late in life. And they both, like most presidents, had contentious relationships with the media.
![Author Michael Wolff questions President Trump's mental capacity for office in his new book 'Fire and Fury'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2018/01/07/16/47BCBF2F00000578-5243811-Author_Michael_Wolff_alleges_that_White_House_staffers_believe_P-a-5_1515341333517.jpg)
Author Michael Wolff questions President Trump’s mental capacity for office in his new book ‘Fire and Fury’
During the Reagan years, the Republican president’s communications office dealt with the media by trying to bypass major outlets by establishing a ‘White House New Service,’ which would offer an ‘official, unedited version of what the President and his office have to say,’ according to the Boston Globe.
Trump and his White House have actively tried to discredit the media, labeling outlets ‘fake.’
Beyond Trump’s press problem, political watchers on Twitter were quick to point out that a bigger ‘problem’ Reagan had as president were rumors that he was suffering from dementia while in office, especially after a particularly poor performance against Democrat Walter Mondale in a 1984 presidential debate.
Reagan was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1994, five years after leaving office, but his namesake son Ron Reagan wrote in his 2011 book, ‘My Father at 100: A Memoir,’ that he believed his father was showing signs of the degenerative brain disease while serving as president.
‘Three years into his first term as president, though, I was feeling the first shivers of concern that something beyond mellowing was affecting my father,’ the younger Reagan wrote in his book.
Later he wrote, ‘My father might himself have suspected that all was not as it should be. As far back as August 1986 he had been alarmed to discover, while flying over the familiar canyons north of Los Angeles, that he could no longer summon their names.’
White House doctors reportedly never saw the signs and Reagan Jr. wrote that he believes no cover-up ever took place.
‘I’ve seen no evidence that my father (or anyone else) was aware of his medial condition while he was in office,’ Reagan wrote. ‘Had the diagnosis been made in, say 1987, would he have stepped won? I believe he would have.’
The younger Reagan also noted how doctors know far more about the disease now, including that signs can show up years before an official diagnosis.
‘The question, then, of whether my father suffered from the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s while in office more or less answers itself,’ he wrote.
Some of the most concerning information coming from author Michael Wolff has to do with President Trump’s present health.
In an op-ed Wolff penned for the Hollywood Reporter as a preview to his book, he noted how ‘At Mar-a-Lago, just before the new year, a heavily made-up Trump failed to recognize a succession of old friends.’
Wolff also suggested that while many of Trump’s aides didn’t believe his presidency would survive the Russia probe, led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, they were concerned about the president’s health too.
‘There was more: Everybody was painfully aware of the increasing pace of his repetitions,’ Wolff wrote. ‘It used to be inside of 30 minutes he’d repeat, word-for-word and expression-for-expression, the same three stories – now it was within 10 minutes.’
‘Indeed many of his tweets were the product of his repetitions – he just couldn’t stop saying something,’ Wolff added.
The president tried addressing questions about his mental fitness for office by taking to Twitter on Saturday, bringing up Reagan then too.
‘Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence,’ Trump wrote.
‘Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart,’ the president added.
‘Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames,’ he continued.
‘I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!’ the president concluded about himself.
Politico reported last week that a dozen lawmakers had been briefed by Yale psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee on Trump’s fitness for office in December and she’s been asked to talk to additional members of Congress later this month.