I am neither a physician nor a practitioner of psychology. I am an intelligent person with an informed layman's grasp of medicine and psychopathology. I believe I have seen several signs of mental instability, and possibly mental illness, in Donald Trump, the president of the United States.
So many commentators have spoken of Trump's Narcissism that it seems hardly worth mentioning. Still, I believe it to be only a part of Trump's psychopathology.
The material below has been excerpted from the transcript of a presidential Coronavirus press briefing held April 13, 2020. The entire transcript can be read at
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-coronavirus-press-conference-transcript-april-13.
I have not altered the text. I have removed elapsed time markings and other non-text material that could impede smooth reading. I have also used italic and bold text to emphasize certain phrases, and I have inserted a few explanatory words in brackets.
I have arranged the conditions I believe affect the president alphabetically to avoid any appearance of suggesting any as being of greater or lesser importance.
The final section, "The Rabbit Hole," contains a few examples of the unfiltered babble that frequently escapes the presidential lips.
--Diogenes, 4/15/2020
R=Reporter; T=Trump
BLAME PROJECTION
R: What is the status of the funding for the World Health Organization?
T: We’re going to be talking about that very soon. I’m getting a full
report. I’m not happy with the World Health Organization. Not happy with
the World Trade Organization either. We’ve been ripped off by
everybody. We have, this country, for so many years, has been ripped off
by everybody, whether it’s the World Health or World Trade. They’re
like, I call them, the Bobbsey Twins. They look at our country, for
years and years, we had people that did nothing about it. We’re doing a
lot about it. So we’ll have a report and we’ll also, we’re also talking
about the World Trade Organization, but we’ve made a lot of progress
there. We’re now winning cases for the first time because they know I’ll
leave if we don’t get treated fairly.
This country, our country, was at a point where we’ve rarely, if ever,
won the lawsuits within the World Trade Organization, but now we’re
winning a lot of them because they know I’m not playing games. We will
pull out if we have to. We just won a $7 billion lawsuit, which was very
nice.
R: [News about] Theodore Roosevelt has died. Have you decided the status of Captain Crozier, the former [crosstalk 00:11:03].
T: Well, that’s going through the Navy as I understand it. The Navy is
going to be making decisions on all of that, and they had a break in. I
don’t think the ship should have been stopping in Vietnam when you have a
pandemic to be honest with you. I don’t think the captain should have
been writing letters. He’s not Ernest Hemingway, as I said before, and
he shouldn’t have been writing letters. I don’t know who gave the orders
to stop in Vietnam, but they stopped in Vietnam, and all of a sudden
they get on and now you have over 500 sailors and people on the ship
that are affected. I don’t know whose idea that was, but that wasn’t
such a good idea in the middle of a pandemic.
T: And what we did last time is unprecedented. We literally rebuild tests.
We rebuilt a whole industry because we inherited nothing. What we
inherited from the previous administration was totally broken, which
somebody should eventually say. Not only were the cupboards bare as I
say, but we inherited broken testing. Now we have great testing. I just
left the top executives at Abbott. Who would have thought that would
have happened where they have such a great test as that?
T: Remember, and you saw the stories, I inherited this administration,
Mike [Pence], myself, the whole administration. We inherited a stockpile where
the cupboards were bare. There was nothing, and I say it and I’ll say it
again, just like we didn’t have ammunition, we didn’t have medical
supplies, we didn’t have ventilators, we didn’t have a lot of things
that should have been had, and you can read your own stories on that
because you know what happened. They didn’t want to spend the money, but
we did. To date, we’ve facilitated the supply of more than 38 million
N95 masks nationwide. This week we’ll be sending two million N95 masks
to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
DENIAL
T: This is reported by CDC, confirmed by the news, which doesn’t mean anything to me, because they don’t tell the truth.
T: And so the story in the New York Times was a total fake. It’s a fake
newspaper and they write fake stories. And someday, hopefully in five
years when I’m not here, those papers are all going out of business,
because nobody’s going to want to read them, but now they like them
because they wrote about me.
T: [Following a 4-minute campaign-style video]: I have many clips. I have
some clips from Anthony [Fauci] that I didn’t want to put up, which were really
good. I think Anthony would be the first one to say when I closed the
country to China, the China ban, whatever you want to call it, Anthony
said I saved a lot of lives by doing that. I mean, am I correct? I don’t
want to put words in Anthony’s mouth, by the way, and I like him. Today
I walk in, I hear I’m going to fire him. I’m not firing him. I think
he’s a wonderful guy. I retweeted somebody, I
don’t know. They said fire, doesn’t matter.
R: Did you notice that when you retweeted it?
T: Yeah, I notice everything.
R: So you retweeted it even though it said time to fire Fauci?
T: Well, no, that’s somebody’s opinion. All that is is a opinion.
R: But you read it, and you elevated it.
T: Well, I was called about that. I said, “I’m not firing.” In fact, if
you ask your friends in the public relations office, I was immediately
called upon that, and I said, “No, I like him. I think he’s terrific.”
Because this was a person’s view. Not everybody’s happy with Anthony.
Not everybody’s happy with everybody, but I will tell you, we have done a
job the likes of which nobody has ever done. The mobilization, getting
of equipment, all of the things we’ve done, nobody’s ever done a job
like this. We have 50 governors and territories, by the way, people
don’t ever mention that. We have territories.
R: What did you do with that time that you bought? The argument is that
you bought yourself some time. You didn’t use it to prepare hospitals.
You didn’t use it to ramp up testing. Right now, nearly 20 million
people are unemployed.
T: You’re so disgraceful. It’s so disgraceful the way you say that. Let me just, listen. I just went over it.
R: Tens of thousands of Americans are dead. How is this [crosstalk
00:35:57] or this rant supposed to make people feel confident in an
unprecedented crisis?
T: I just went over it. Nobody thought we should do it, and when I did it-
R: But what did you do with the time that you bought? The month of February. That video has a gap, the entire month of February.
T: You know what we did? What do you do when you have no case in the whole United States?
R: You had cases in February.
T: Excuse me. You reported it. Zero cases, zero deaths on January 17th-
R: January, February, the entire month of February.
T: I said in January.
R: That video has a complete gap.
T: On January 30th-
R: What did your administration do in February for the time that your travel ban bought you?
T: A lot.
R: What?
T: A lot, and in fact, we’ll give you a list. What we did, in fact, part of it was up there. [Referring to the video.]
R: It wasn’t. Your video had a gap.
T: We did a lot. Look, look, you know you’re a fake. You know that. Your
whole network, the way you cover it is fake, and most of you, and not
all of you, but the people are wise to you. That’s why you have a lower
approval rating than you’ve ever had before times probably three.
R: 20 million people are unemployed. Tens of thousands are dead.
T: And when you asked me that question, let me ask you this, why did Biden apologize? Why did he write a letter of apology?
R: I don’t think anyone in this room cares about why Joe Biden didn’t apologize to you.
T: No, that’s very important. Why did the Democrats think that I acted too
quickly? You know why? Because they really thought that I acted too
quickly. We have done a great job. . . . The problem is the press doesn’t cover it the way it
should be.
LIES (in red)
T: When on January 31st, I instituted the ban, Joe Biden went crazy. He
said, “You don’t need the ban.” He didn’t go crazy. He didn’t even know
what the hell the ban was, so he didn’t go crazy. But he did say,
[crosstalk 00:35:24] he did call me xenophobic, wait a minute, he called
me xenophobic. He called me a racist because… He has since apologized
and he said I did the right thing.
T: No one who has needed a ventilator has not gotten a ventilator. Think of
that. You know, you heard all about ventilators, ventilators, we need
ventilators, because they didn’t have them, because the states should’ve
had them. No one who has needed a ventilator has not gotten a
ventilator. No one who has needed a hospital bed has been denied a
hospital bed. That’s not even really our responsibility.
T: And I’ve been asking from the beginning, “Why can’t we sterilize and
sanitize these masks?” And it turned out we can, and there was a great
company in Ohio. They sent us some great equipment and they’re doing
that now, and now we’re going to have more than 33 million N95 masks per
week will be cleaned, decontaminated, and it’ll be great. It’s
something that frankly, I think people should have thought of a long
time ago. [Mask sterilization has
been in use since early in the outbreak, but is advised only in
situations of shortage. Only three reuses are allowed.]
MEGALOMANIA
R: Mr. President, thank you, sir. In regards to some of your tweets
earlier today, and I think it was Steve’s question, my question to you
is what provision in the Constitution gives the president the power to
open or close state economies?
T: Numerous provisions. We’ll give you a legal brief if you want.
R: We’ll be looking forward to that, sir. But following up, what happens
if you say, for instance, we want states to reopen, but California or
New York do not open, what would you do then?
T: Well, I think everybody wants to open. I mean, I guess-
R: Sorry, could I just ask one other thing on the-
T: I guess that could happen, but I don’t think that would happen.
R: The states that have closed, ordered schools closed, it’s been states
that have ordered businesses like restaurants and bars and place-
T: That’s because I let that happen, because I would’ve preferred that. I
let that happen. But if I wanted to, I could have closed it up. But I
let that happen. I like the way they’ve done it.
R: Yes, Mr. President. Following up on that, there are two
consortiums of states today, California, Oregon, Washington on the West
Coast, Northeastern states, totally representing about a hundred million
people, who said they’re going to cooperate and decide when to reopen
those states.
T: Well they can decide, but-
R: Does that undermine what you’re trying to do?
T: No, not at all. Let me just tell you very simple. I’m going to put it
very simply. The president of the United States has the authority to do
what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The
president of the United States calls the shots. If we weren’t here for
the states, you would have had a problem in this country like you’ve
never seen before. We were here to back them up, and we’ve more than
backed them up. We did a job that nobody ever thought was possible. It’s
a decision for the president of the United States.
Now, with that being said, we’re going to work with the states, because
it’s very important. You have local governments. They’re pinpointed.
It’s really, you talk about… It’s like a microchip. They’re pinpointed.
We have local government that hopefully will do a good job. If they
don’t do a good job, I’d step in so fast. But no, they can’t do anything
without the approval of the president of the United States.
R: So if some States refused to reopen and you ordered them to, the 10th
amendment of the constitution says all powers that don’t reside in the
president of the Congress reside in the states, how do you overcome
that?
T: Well if some states refuse to open, I would like to see that person run
for election. They’re going to open. They’re going to all open.
R: Just to clarify your understanding of your authority vis a vis
governors. Just to be very specific. For instance, if a governor issued a
stay at home order-
T: When you say my authority, the president’s authority, not mine, because
it’s not me. This is when somebody is the President of the United
States, the authority is total and that’s the way it’s got to be.
R: It’s total. Your authority is total?
T: It’s total. It’s total-And the governors know that.
R: So if a governor-
T: The governors know that. Now you have a couple of bands of-
R: Could you rescind that order?T: You have a couple of bands of Democrat governors, but they will agree to it. They will agree it.
R: What does the authority cover?
T: The authority of the President of the United States having to do with
the subject we’re talking about is total.
R: A quick question on something you just said. You said when someone is
President of the United States, their authority is total. That is not
true. Who told you that?
T: You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to write up papers on
this. It’s not going to be necessary because the governors need us one
way or the other, because ultimately, it comes with the federal
government. That being said, we’re getting along very well with the
governors and I feel very certain that there won’t be a problem. Yeah
please, go ahead.
R: Has any governor agreed that you have the authority to decide when their states [crosstalk 01:27:32]?
T: I haven’t asked anybody because-
R: That no one is [crosstalk 01:27:34]-
T: You know why? Because I don’t have to. Go ahead please.
R: But who told you the president has the total authority?
T: Enough. Please.
R: One last thing on this question on this question of constitutionality. I’m just wondering what changed your view because-
T: Nothing changed it. I know exactly what you’re going to say. Nothing
changed it. The fact that I want to rely on states, or maybe will or
have, and the fact that we’ve gotten on, that’s one thing. The fact that
I don’t want to use the power is another thing. Look-
R: But you said from the standpoint of the constitution.
T: Yes, the constitution.
R: You thought it should be up to the governors.
T: You can look at it constitutionally, you could look at federalism. You
can look at it any different way. John, the fact that I don’t want to
exert my power is much different. We have the power. You asked does the
federal government has the power? The federal government has absolute
power. It has the power as to whether or not I’ll use that power. We’ll
see.
John, I would rather work with the states, because I like going down to
a local government. That’s why, with I guess it’s now seven states, not
eight, because South Carolina did. They went away from what we
discussed the last time, so that’s why I looked at the individual
states. They’re doing a very good job. They’re really doing a very good
job. I’d rather have them make the decision. Now, the fact that I’d
rather have, that’s fine, but I have the absolute right to do if I want
to. I may not want to. We have a very good relationship now. We’ll see
what happens. If you notice the few states you’re talking about, they’re
all with democrat governors, but if governors are doing a good job and
they control it better, because you don’t have somebody in Washington
saying, “Set up a testing site in the parking lot of a Walmart.” We’re
in Washington, and they’re in a state that’s very far away.
NARCISSISM
T: So we have this massive country, the United States of America. We
have the greatest economy in the world. Bigger than China’s by a lot,
right? Because of what we’ve done over the last three and a half years,
prior to the virus, but including the virus. So we have the biggest
economy, the greatest economy we’ve ever had, the highest employment
numbers, the best employment numbers, best unemployment numbers, also,
the best of everything.
T: But CDC reported,
January 31st not one person has died. And I issued a travel restriction
from China. Think of it. So nobody died. And I issued, you can’t get
earlier than that. So we have, nobody died. And I said, “China, you
can’t come in. I’m sorry”, because I saw what was going on. Wasn’t so
much what I was told, it was that I saw what was going on and I didn’t
like it. But I didn’t speak to Tony about, didn’t speak to very many
people about it. I didn’t like it. So what did I do?
T: I said, “How was it?” He said, “It’s a 10.” He used one of my expressions actually, but he said it was a 10.
T: That [campaign-style video] was done by a group in the office, and it was done just by… we
just put some clips together. I’ll bet you I have over a hundred more
clips even better than them. They were just pieced together over the
last two hours. That was just… Oh, we have far better than that. That’s
nothing compared to some of them.
R: This was produced here in the White House by-
T: Yeah, this was done by Dan [Scavino] and a group of people, and they just put it together in a period of probably less than two hours.
R: Why’d you feel a need to do that?
T: Because we’re getting fake news, and I like to have it corrected.
They’re saying what a great job we’re doing, these are the governors of
California, governor of New Jersey, governor of New York.
PARANOIA
T: Brutalized
by the press, but I’ve been brutalized for the last four years. I used
to do well before I decided to run for politics, but I guess I’m doing
okay, because to the best of my knowledge, I’m the president of the
United States despite the things that are said.
R: But just to be clear, this [video] was produced by government employees, by
people here at the White House, this campaign-style video here?
T: I wouldn’t use the word produced. All they did was took some clips, and
they just ran them for you. And the reason they did is to keep you
honest. Now, I don’t think that’s going to work. It’s not going to have
any impact, but just think of it.
THE RABBIT HOLE
T: So we just want to say warmest condolences and we’re with you all the
way. It’s a tough deal. That was a bad, bad level five. That was a bad
group. That’s as high as it gets. It was a bad grouping of tornadoes,
something that’s something incredible, the power, the horrible,
destructive power.
R: From China, why are there no consequences for China for the misinformation that they shared-
T: How do you know that there are no consequences?
R: Well, you’ve been asked and it appears that they’re weren’t-
T: How do you know that there are no consequences?
R: What are the consequences Mr. President of the misinformation-
T: I wouldn’t tell you. China will find out. Why would I tell you?
R: But people are concerned that they stone-walled [crosstalk 01:30:35]-
T: No, you started off by saying why are there no consequences?
R: But you’ve been asked this a few times, [inaudible 01:30:39]. Why are there no consequences for China?
T: How do you know that there are no consequences?
R: Because we’ve asked you and said-
T: You’re going to find out.
R: You’ve said [crosstalk 01:30:45].
T: I wouldn’t tell you. You’d probably be the last person on earth I’d tell.
R: So you’re saying there was no consequences?
T: See, I don’t want to tell you now, but right now we have a very strong
indication that we know pretty much we have some good ideas. I also want
to have … We’ll have video conference or at least a conference call
with a lot of very good people having to do with certain fields, whether
it’s energy or whether it’s entertainment and restaurants, et cetera,
et cetera.
T: You looked at the charts, and the charts are, and the models from early
on predictions were 100 and 120,000 people look like if they did well,
they were going to unfortunately perish. And we’re going to be hopefully
way, way below that number. So that will be a sign of people doing
things right, but it’s still just a horrible thing all over the world,
184 countries. This is attribute the wonderful healthcare advisors and
experts who have been with us right from the beginning. We appreciate it
so much.