Dr. Bandy X (Xenobia) Lee, a psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine’s Law and Psychiatry Division, who has been featured on both CNN and MSNBC, posted a tweet on Monday comparing the president of the United States unfavorably to Adolf Hitler, the head of the Nazis responsible for the genocidal Holocaust.
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Dr. Lee Tweets: Trump Worse Than Hitler
“Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler,” Lee began. “At least Hitler improved the daily life of his followers, had discipline, and required more of himself to gain the respect of his followers. Even with the same pathology, there are varying degrees of competence.”
CNN and MSNBC’s favorite “resistance” mental health expert has some thoughts on adolf hitler. pic.twitter.com/bCq2M9YzxC
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) November 2, 2020
Dr. Lee has 91,800 Twitter followers and is president of the World Mental Health Coalition. Her public statement drew criticism, leading her to delete it from Twitter. But rather than apologize, Dr. Lee doubled down, maintaining that the current US president is indeed worse than Hitler.
“Of note, my statement was about how little Donald Trump believes he needs to do to retain his followership, NOT to minimize Adolf Hitler’s atrocities,” Dr. Lee tweeted.
Okay, I have taken it down, since it has upset so many people and was not provoking thought but the opposite. Of note, my statement was about how little Donald Trump believes he needs to do to retain his followership, NOT to minimize Adolf Hitler’s atrocities.
— Bandy X Lee, MD, MDiv (@BandyXLee1) November 2, 2020
She continued, insisting that it is necessary to learn from history, implying that a president who has a Jewish daughter and Jewish grandchildren is poised to follow in the footsteps of the author of Mein Kampf which contained the blueprints for the Final Solution.
“If we cannot look at parallels in history and learn from them, we are truly poised to repeat it. I say so in heartbreak for the 11+ million lives lost, not in their minimization (currently, we are looking at 7 billion at risk, without exaggeration if we soberly thought of it),” Dr. Lee tweeted.
Okay, I have taken it down, since it has upset so many people and was not provoking thought but the opposite. Of note, my statement was about how little Donald Trump believes he needs to do to retain his followership, NOT to minimize Adolf Hitler’s atrocities.
— Bandy X Lee, MD, MDiv (@BandyXLee1) November 2, 2020
In her insistence that we learn from history, Dr. Lee seems to have forgotten to include the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust who were the primary focus of the Nazi death camps that killed an additional eleven million non-Jews.
Dr. Lee tweeted yet again, clarifying her previous statement in a decidedly convoluted manner.
Okay, I have taken it down, since it has upset so many people and was not provoking thought but the opposite. Of note, my statement was about how little Donald Trump believes he needs to do to retain his followership, NOT to minimize Adolf Hitler’s atrocities.
— Bandy X Lee, MD, MDiv (@BandyXLee1) November 2, 2020
Again, she claimed that President Trump is objectively more murderous than Hitler. Screenshots showed a now-removed tweet claiming, “A refusal to make comparisons has been a problem, when they have such similarities,” she reportedly added. “Donald Trump’s death toll is now higher than Hitler’s at the same period.”
Dr. Lee’s History of Diagnosing Trump From Afar
Dr. Lee has been highly critical of President Trump in the past. In 2017, Lee attracted attention for organizing a conference at Yale on professional ethics surrounding the mental health of Donald Trump. Lee then stated in an interview with Salon in May 2017 that Trump suffers from mental health issues that amount to a “state of emergency” and that “our survival as a species may be at stake.”She also co-authored The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, a book of essays that warned against the dangers of Trump’s mental instability.
Newsweek suggested that her tweet may have violated Twitter’s policies on “hateful conduct,” potentially promoting violence against Trump by comparing him to the infamous overseer of the Holocaust. Twitter did not respond to Newsweek inquiries.
CNN Psychiatrists Have a History of Being a Bit Crazy About Trump
In the CNN pantheon of mental health experts, Dr. Lee could be considered a moderate. In August of 2019, she participated in a panel when Dr. Allen Frances, claimed that Trump was responsible for more deaths than Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. Dr. Lee apparently disagreed, downgrading Trump to only slightly more horrific than a mere single murderous despot. CNN did not distance itself from these remarks, though host Brian Stelter.
Stelter later blamed technical difficulties for not hearing Frances’ remarks in full after the segment was criticized online.
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