Fit to be Tied: President Trump’s angry speech in Phoenix Tuesday night ratcheted up the talk about whether he’s fit to be President.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said on CNN, “I found this downright scary and disturbing. I really question his ability to … his fitness to be in this office. And I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for … maybe he is looking for a way out. I worry about frankly, you know, the access to nuclear codes.”

He asked, “How much longer does the country have to … to borrow a phrase … endure this nightmare?”

Trump delivered a speech yesterday to the American Legion in Reno, calling for unity, but all he did was convince critics that he has a Jekyll and Hyde personality.

CNN’s media critic Brian Stelter caused a bit of a storm when he opened his show saying reporters talk among themselves about the president’s mental health and fitness for office. “Usually after the microphones are off, or after the stories are filed,” Stelter said, “after the paper has been put to bed, people’s concerns, and fears and questions come out. Questions that feel out of bounds, off limits, too hot for TV. Questions like these: ‘Is the president of the United States a racist? Is he suffering from some kind of illness? Is he fit for office? And if he’s unfit, then what?’”

  Democratic Rep. John Garamendi of California said bluntly, “This man is clearly not fit to be President. This man does not have the demeanor or the temperament to be president.”

Editor David Remnick wrote in the latest New Yorker, “This is the inescapable fact: on November 9th, the United States elected a dishonest, inept, unbalanced, and immoral human being as its President and Commander-in-Chief. Trump has daily proven unyielding to appeals of decency, unity, moderation, or fact. He is willing to imperil the civil peace and the social fabric of his country simply to satisfy his narcissism and to excite the worst inclinations of his core followers.”

By the Numbers: A new Quinnipiac poll says Trump’s popularity is sinking, but also has interesting things to say about the press.

The poll says, American voters disapprove of the way the news media covers Trump by 55 – 40 percent, but gives no further explanation. Seemingly in opposition to themselves, voters disapprove 62 – 35 percent of the way the president talks about the media. Voters trust the media more than Trump 54 – 36 percent “to tell you the truth about important issues,” the poll says.

Skin Crawl: Hillary Clinton wrote in her new book “What Happened” about the election that when Donald Trump lurked behind her as she spoke during the St. Louis presidential debate, “My skin crawled.”

She says in her book, “Now we were on a small stage and no matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces.”

“It was incredibly uncomfortable,” she wrote. “He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled. It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching, ‘Well, what would you do?’ Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye and say loudly and clearly, ‘Back up, you creep.’”

Monumental: Charlottesville, Va., the site of that neo-Nazi rally, has wrapped its Confederate statues in black shrouds to memorialize 32-year-old Heather Heyer, who was killed when a neo-Nazi drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters.

 The Obit Page: Thomas Meehan, who in theater parlance wrote what’s called the “book” for the Broadway hit “Annie” and won three Tony Awards, has died at 88. Meehan also wrote the book for “The Producers,” and “Hairspray” with Mark O’Donnell. He told The Observer newspaper in 1999, “My career has always been that every time I try something really serious, it’s no good, but if I try to be funny, then it works.”

>Tony DeBrum, who saw the rising waters around his native Marshall Islands and became a worldwide leader in the fight against climate change, has died at age 72. He was, in particular, a strong advocate for the Paris Climate Accord.

Ink Stains: New York’s Village Voice newspaper, the 62-year-old alternative weekly that printed generations of writers and told you where to find an apartment or meet the opposite sex at a poetry reading, announced this week that it will stop publishing on paper and go digital only. When The Voice was in its heyday, digital meant something else entirely.

Novelist Norman Mailer was one of the three founders of the paper that was once fat with opinions and advertisements. Going online is another opportunity for lovers of the paper to say it’s not what it used to be. Kind of like Bob Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival.

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