The mental health of President Trump has rarely been out of the headlines, but now the son of Ronald Reagan, one of the Republican party’s favorite presidents, has called him unfit for office.

In an interview with CNN News, Ronald Reagan Junior made a clear distinction between the performance and mental health of his late father and that of President Trump. While President Reagan’s health possibly deteriorated toward the end of his second term of office, Trump, says Reagan Junior, was unfit for office before he even became president.

Reagan Junior said that his father was diagnosed in 1994 with Alzheimer related dementia – some five years after his presidency ended.

Reagan Junior didn’t deny that in the later stages of his presidency the early symptoms of the disease might possibly have affected his father’s performance. He said that President Reagan struggled with short-term memory lapses.

Early stages of dementia

It's a medical certainty, he told CNN, that dementia, a later progression of Alzheimer’s occurs about 10 years after the onset of the disease. Working out the sum means President Reagan must have had the illness in its early stages when he was still in office. Reagan Junior was then at pains to point out that what happened to his father was not as damaging as the experience of President Trump. In the most damning criticism yet of President Trump, Ronald Reagan Junior said the onset of his father’s illness in the later stages of his presidency was completely different to what the country is seeing in President Trump.

Unfit for office

Reagan Junior said Trump became president unfit for office. He did not develop an illness, he was already mentally unfit for office when he entered the White House, he continued. Ronald Reagan Junior then went on to say that while it is difficult to discuss the health of presidents, in this case, it is a priority.

The state of President Trump's mental health might be a danger to the country and it needs to be discussed urgently and openly.

Mental health tests

Ronald Reagan Junior’s criticism of President Trump follows a letter sent to White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson from 30 mental health professionals from across the globe. In the letter they urge Jackson to perform basic mental health tests on the president as soon as possible. It is not clear whether these tests have been undertaken as there is no requirement for the results to be released publicly.