The conflict of interest for President-elect Trump that no one’s talking about

Photo credit: m01229/ Flickr.com

Photo credit: m01229/ Flickr.com

Mark Feinberg, a clinical psychologist and health and human development research professor at Penn State, recently wrote an op-ed about the psychology of President-elect Donald Trump’s moral authority to be commander-in-chief for The Hill. Here’s an excerpt:

Mark Feinberg

Mark Feinberg

“President-elect Donald Trump and his family have exacerbated concerns about conflict of interest complications in the last two weeks. Although many papers and news broadcasts have discussed the multiple difficult problems that the Trump family’s financial empire poses for making presidential decisions in recent days, so far the focus has only been on half the issue.

“The president not only presides as chief executive of the federal government, he is also the commander in chief of the military and responsible for sending American soldiers into harm’s way.

“This presents an urgent problem.

“The moral authority of the president is critical in our democracy: The decisions of the commander in chief must be viewed as legitimate by the citizenry and especially those who serve in the military. When the moral authority of a president-commander declines, there can be serious negative consequences for our military and the security of our country.”

Read more at thehill.com.

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