Denial and Deflection

This was written Saturday, 4/18/20; publishing was delayed by technical issues.


Denial: psychology: a defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary online)

Deflection: Psychological deflection is seen as a narcissistic abuse tactic used to control the mind and emotions of others. Nevertheless, psychological deflection is not only a narcissistic tool but also a coping mechanism strategy. Individuals who use it seek to mask their own impulses by denying their mistakes and projecting them on the people around them. (https://www.learning-mind.com/psychological-deflection/)

This is the third in a daily series of posts about apparent mental disorders displayed by Donald Trump. The quotes are from the transcript of a presidential COVID-19 press briefing held April 13, 2020. It is old news now, but I use one briefing for these commentaries to provide a snapshot of the president's behavior at one point in time.

Some excerpts mention a video. The president played a campaign-style video about 5 minutes long, featuring several governors praising the president.

The excerpts are not continuous. A double space between paragraphs signals a break in continuity. I have not altered the text. I have removed elapsed-time markings and other non-text material that could impede smooth reading, used italic text to emphasize salient phrases, and inserted a few explanatory words in brackets.

The entire transcript can be read at
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-coronavirus-press-conference-transcript-april-13.

Diogenes---4/18/20


R=Reporter  T=Trump


DENIAL AND DEFLECTION--in italics

T: This is reported by CDC, confirmed by the news, which doesn’t mean anything to me, because they don’t tell the truth. But CDC reported, January 31st not one person has died.
      
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. [Uncertain reference].


T: Anthony [Fauci] said I saved a lot of lives by doing that [banning China travel]. 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 up on 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? [Also a lie. There was no 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.