Narcissism

Narcissism: A personality disorder characterized especially by an exaggerated sense of self-importance, persistent need for admiration, lack of empathy for others, excessive pride in achievements, and snobbish, disdainful, or patronizing attitudes.   (Merriam-Webster online dictionary)

This is the second 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. 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 bold 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, 4/17/20




R=Reporter   T=Trump   Note: Trump frequently uses the royal "we."


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.
     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.

T: I said, “How was it?” He [Mike Pence] said, “It’s a 10.” He used one of my expressions actually, but he said it was a 10. [Referencing a phone call with governors.]

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, WH media guru] 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.