Republicans launch bid to make 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' an official mental illness

By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-17 15:31:33 | Updated at 2025-03-18 01:36:43 10 hours ago

By KATELYN CARALLE, SENIOR U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Published: 15:22 GMT, 17 March 2025 | Updated: 15:25 GMT, 17 March 2025

Trump Derangement Syndrome could be considered a real mental illness, if Republicans have their way.

A group of GOP senators in Minnesota filed a bill to classify the made-up condition an official disorder.

The proposal details how Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) manifests as 'verbal expressions of intense hostility' toward Donald Trump and 'overt acts of aggression and violence' against any person or thing that expresses support for the president.

It claims symptoms produce 'Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald Trump's behavior.'

For years, pro-Trump pundits and allies have paraded the term around as an insult towards critics who oppose the MAGA agenda and its leader Donald Trump.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X last month that 'Trump Derangement Syndrome is causing Democrats & the media to oppose President Trump's commonsense efforts to cut billions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse from our federal government.'

Republicans in the Minnesota Senate are launching a bid to officially classify the so-called Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) as a mental illness 

The bill claims TDS symptoms produce 'Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald Trump's behavior'

'They can't stand that we finally have a President who actually delivers on his promises,' she added when defending Trump's initiatives to cut billions in government spending and thousands of federal jobs.

Minnesota's SF2589 bill states: 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' means the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump.'

While 'derangement syndrome' is a political phrase made popular in recent years to mock Trump's enemies and critics, the term was coined in 2003 by the late political commentator Charles Krauthammer to describe critics of then-President George W. Bush.

Last month, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt credited TDS as the reason Democrats claim they are against the president's target on federal government's waste, fraud and abuse

The Minnesota proposal includes the same phrasing Krauthammer used to describe 'Bush derangement syndrome,' which was defined as 'the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency—nay—the very existence of George W. Bush.' 

Republicans in the Minnesota Senate want to redefine the term TDS so it is recognized as a 'mental illness' by the American Psychiatric Association and Zero to Three, a nonprofit for baby and toddler development.

They are reading the proposed bull before the Minnesota Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Monday.

Minnesota is a blue state that voted 50.9 percent for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election compared to the 46.7 percent that voted for Trump.

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