PBS News anchor Amna Nawaz hosted clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis on Thursday’s PBS News Hour for a segment that felt very much like a violation of the psychiatric profession’s so-called Goldwater Rule.
Nawaz pounced on Trump’s long pause for music appreciation during a campaign appearance, after two medical emergencies in the crowd had halted proceedings, and another rambling anecdote involving a battery, a sinking boat, and a shark.
This galling report comes after years of PBS ignoring, hiding, even denying President Joe Biden’s actual mental decline, like ignoring their own 2023 poll showing great public concern. PBS was channeling Biden happy talk after the disastrous debate that ended his campaign.
The “Goldwater rule” is a statement of ethics restraining psychiatrists from speculating about the mental state of public figures they have not personally evaluated. The…
