On Tuesday, former Republican congressman and current MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough questioned Donald Trump's mental fitness, as did one of his guests, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson. That was a bridge too far for Fox News media critic Howard Kurtz. Early Wednesday morning, Kurtz said that Trump may deserve some of the flak he's getting for criticizing the family of slain Iraq War hero Capt. Humayun Khan, "but now, for the first time in this campaign," he said, "we're starting to see some major-league news outlets asking this question: Is Donald Trump mentally ill? Is Donald Trump crazy? Does Donald Trump have some sort of problem up here?"
"Anyone running for president gets every single part of their life questioned," Kurtz said. "Your judgment, temperament, your record, your policies: Everything is fair game to be hammered." But questioning someone's sanity is different. Trump beat 16 well-qualified Republicans to get the GOP nomination, he noted. "Could a crazy person do that?" Trump "built a hugely successful global business with his last name a brand everybody recognizes," Kurtz added. "Is that a mark of insanity? This is a guy who built a reality TV show, 14 successful seasons on NBC. Could you do that if you're just a little bit loco?" He suggested that no, reality TV stars and successful politicians can't be crazy, and Scarborough, Robinson, and the "other pundits here or there who are questioning Trump's sanity" are just "dovetailing with the Democratic effort" to portray Trump as "dangerous, unprepared, unfit."
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