Donakd J. Trump Has Some Thoughts on the Millions of Americans With Dyslexia

Donald Trump, who has managed to misspell his own name in a couple of different ways, on Wednesday had a message for the roughly 65 million Americans with dyslexia: You have “mental problems.”

The president, who is not only at war with Iran but also with the rules of capitalization and punctuation, took aim at Gavin Newsom (D) in a social media post and at a rally after the California governor recently talked about his life with dyslexia, the most common learning disability in the US.

Newsom has never made a secret of the diagnosis, but it caught the attention of Fox News, and therefore Trump, when he discussed it at an event in Atlanta last month.

On Wednesday, the president, who has referred to his wife as “Melanie” before, called the governor a “cognitive mess” in a Truth Social post that contained numerous errors.

“While we all want to be politically correct, having a mental disorder is not a positive campaign event,” Trump wrote.

The president, who has had trouble distinguishing between the “soul” and the “sole” of the nation, expressed his belief that Newsom discussing his dyslexia means he is “no longer a viable Presidential Candidate [sic].”

While Trump is barred from running for a third term, it’s simply not the savviest political move to equate an extremely common learning disability with a mental disorder.

About 20 percent of Americans have dyslexia, which makes it much more prevalent than, for example, narcissistic personality disorder or sociopathy, just to mention a couple of random “mental problems” people may exhibit.

Trump didn’t stop at a grammatically challenged social media post. He also brought up Newsom at a rally in Kentucky.

The president, who famously brags about not needing a teleprompter, was getting ready to launch into an anti-Newsom tirade when he was interrupted by an audience member fainting right after Trump announced that he wanted to go off teleprompter.

After a five-minute medical timeout, he got right back to the topic that was clearly on his mind.

“Anyway, he admitted he has mental problems. That he’s not a smart person. That he has a mental lack of ability,” the president, who once accused China of committing an “unpresidented” instead of an “unprecedented” act, said of Newsom.

Speaking of presidented, several of Trump’s predecessors were either diagnosed with dyslexia or were suspected of having lived with the learning disability, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Woodrow Wilson.

“He’s unable to read a speech. He can’t read. And all of the other things he said,” the president continued. “He said he has a lot of mental problems.”

Trump added that he does not “want the president of the United States to have a cognitive deficiency,” to which Newsom later responded “Too late.”

While the governor may welcome the attention, we don’t believe that this bickering helps a president who is deeply unpopular, just started a war the American people don’t approve of, oversees a struggling economy, and has to deal with constant negative press covfefe.