Joe Scarborough says his sources doubt Trump's mental fitness

Scarborough says he filed quotes in two Washington Post columns suggesting Trump was not mentally well, but said the newspaper didn't run them. (JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES)

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough claims sources close to President Trump believe he's showing early signs of dementia.

The "Morning Joe" co-host added the Washington Post twice struck "a quote about one of (the) people closest to Donald Trump during the campaign saying he's got early stage of dementia."

Scarborough alleged the 71-year-old President repeats stories and has a family history of the degenerative disease.

"And it's getting worse, and not a single person who works for him doesn't know it," said Scarborough, a former Republican congressman.

Critics have called the President's mental fitness into question since the release of Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury: Inside the White House." Wolff was a guest on "Morning Joe" when Scarborough made the comments.

The book, which Wolff says is from a year's worth of interviews with administration officials, suggests the former businessman doesn't have the intellectual infrastructure to helm the U.S. government.

Scarborough has regularly clashed with the commander-in-chief since he took office. (CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES)

“Hoping for the best, with their personal futures as well as the country's future depending on it, my indelible impression of talking to them and observing them through much of the first year of his presidency, is that they all — 100 percent — came to believe he was incapable of functioning in his job,” Wolff wrote in an excerpted column for The Hollywood Reporter published Thursday.

Those claims prompted Trump on Saturday to fire off a series of angry tweets, calling himself a "stable genius" who's always been known for being "like, really smart."

Scarborough, a onetime pal of the President before a public blowout last summer, suggested Trump's mental health was a taboo topic until Wolff's book came out.

"For the past year, we've had people around Donald Trump saying he's not mentally fit to be President," Scarborough said Monday. "And there is such a reluctance, and I'm not knocking the Washington Post."

Neither the Washington Post nor the White House immediately returned a request for comment.

- ny news