Republicans push to make 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' a mental illness: What's it all about?

Do you find yourself getting irrationally angry at the mere mention of Donald Trump? Do his policies, tweets, or even his voice send you into a spiral of frustration? If so, Republicans say you might have what they call “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

Now, five Republican lawmakers in Minnesota want to take this label beyond political banter—by officially recognising it as a mental illness.

A bill introduced by Senators Eric Lucero, Steve Drazkowski, Nathan Wesenberg, Justin Eichorn, and Glenn H. Gruenhagen has been submitted to Minnesota’s Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Monday for a review. If passed, it would acknowledge the so-called illness in legal and medical discussions.

But what exactly is ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’? Where did the term come from? We explain.

Being ‘Trump-sick’

According to the Minnesota bill, Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is described as the “acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump.”

Journalist Fareed Zakaria has defined it as an “intense hatred of President Trump so strong that it impairs people’s judgment.”

But how does one know if they have it? The bill outlines the supposed symptoms, calling it “Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology.” This, it claims, manifests as verbal hostility or acts of aggression against Trump and his MAGA supporters.

BREAKING: Minnesota Senate Republicans just introduced a bill to classify “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as a mental illness. pic.twitter.com/SIPBbdQh6g

— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) March 15, 2025

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For years, Trump and his supporters have used the phrase to mock and discredit critics.

In 2018, Trump deployed the term after his controversial Russia–United States summit in Helsinki, stating: “Some people HATE the fact that I got along well with President Putin of Russia. They would rather go to war than see this. It’s called Trump Derangement Syndrome!”

The phrase resurfaced in 2024 as Trump prepared for his return to the White House. His former attorney Alina Habba told Fox News that jurors in his hush money trial should have been sequestered to prevent them from catching TDS and “forgetting all sense of reality.”

In October, Trump dismissed his former chief of staff, John Kelly, as having TDS after Kelly called him a fascist and claimed he had a disturbing admiration for Adolf Hitler.

Even Elon Musk has joined in. During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Musk claimed he used to be “adored by the left” until they were “infected with TDS.”

Trump’s ‘derangement syndrome’ dates back to Bush

While Trump Derangement Syndrome has become a widely used phrase in recent years, it wasn’t originally coined to describe his critics.

The term first appeared in 2003, when late political commentator Charles Krauthammer introduced “Bush Derangement Syndrome” to describe extreme reactions to President George W. Bush.

The Minnesota bill uses the same language Krauthammer once did, defining Bush Derangement Syndrome as “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency—nay—the very existence of George W. Bush.”

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What happens next?

The bill faces an uphill battle. With Democrat-aligned parties holding a narrow one-seat majority in the Minnesota Senate, it is unlikely to pass. Meanwhile, the Minnesota House of Representatives is evenly split, with both the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) and Republicans controlling 67 seats each.

The DFL and other local parties have strongly criticised the proposal.

They argue that TDS is not a recognised medical condition, and no clinical data supports its existence. Instead, they say, it is a political label used to dismiss criticism of Trump. Some even suggest that TDS could apply to die-hard Trump supporters who defend him without question, regardless of facts or consequences.

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A DFL spokesperson told USA TODAY: “This is why Minnesota Republicans have lost every statewide election in recent memory − every time they get an opportunity to try to improve Minnesotans’ lives, they instead double down on an agenda that caters to their party’s most extreme right-wing activists.”

With input from agencies