Jimmy Carter: Media ‘harder’ on Trump than other presidents

by Olivia Beavers - 10/22/17 7:03 PM ET

Former President Jimmy Carter in a new interview defended President Trump for facing a harsher media environment than his predecessors.

“I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about,” Carter told The New York Times in an interview published Saturday.

{mosads}Carter pointed to the reports that question Trump’s mental stability as a sign the press is going too far in scrutinizing him.

“I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation,” Carter continued.

Lawmakers and critics alike have also repeatedly questioned Trump’s fitness for office.

Despite the American Psychiatric Association and American Psychological Association repeatedly saying it is unethical for mental health professionals to offer their opinions about public figures that they have not examined firsthand, thousands of psychiatrists and psychologists signed a petition earlier this year that declared “Trump is mentally ill and must be removed.”

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) introduced a resolution in August suggesting that the president undergo a physical and mental health exam.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) additionally took aim at whether the president is stable, saying he could lead the country “on the path to World War III” and tweeting that “the White House has become an adult day care center.”

Trump’s freewheeling remarks to the press coupled with his atypical background as a GOP presidential nominee pulled an especially strong media focus onto the business mogul last year.

Tags Bob Corker