Would You Trust A Trump-Endorsed Vaccine In October?

What would Trump not do to win? After all, he's obsessed with the idea of going down in the history books as the first American president to go to prison. If he loses in November, it may happen-- not likely, but possible. Even a worthless corporate shill like Biden has publicly pledged to not pardon him. I suppose Señor T could try pardoning himself but that might not stand up. Or he could make a deal with Pence at some time between tomorrow and Wednesday, January 20, 2021-- exactly 24 weeks from today-- when Biden is inaugurated, and resign so that Pence will be able to say he was once president and so that Trump and his family have iron-clad presidential pardons.

Reporting for Raw Story yesterday, clinical psychologists John Gartner and Alan Blotcky wrote that Trump is becoming increasingly dangerous and mentally unhinged. "Trump," they wrote, "is a malignant narcissist, a diagnosis introduced by the famed analyst Erich Fromm, a refugee from Nazi Germany, to explain the psychology of Hitler, Stalin  and other grandiose destructive dictators throughout history. It has four components: narcissism, paranoia, psychopathy and sadism. Malignant narcissists enjoy destroying their real and imagined enemies. It makes them feel powerful, they enjoy inflicting pain, and it is an effective gangster’s tool to intimidate others to do their bidding. If they have been publicly humiliated, made to look weak, they must exact revenge viciously, fiercely, dramatically and preferably publicly. Trump’s philosophy: 'When somebody screws you, you screw them back in spades... You’ve gotta hit people hard. And it’s not so much for that person. It’s other people watch.' Since June 1, Trump’s polls have plummeted, he has been widely mocked and jeered for his dishonest and  ineffective response to the pandemic, protestors have continued in the streets, and his humiliation has continued. His response has been to bring Lafayette Park to scale. Unmarked military have abducted protestors off the streets of Portland despite the outrage of local and state officials. Trump has signaled an intent to send troops to Albuquerque, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Baltimore-- none of whom want them-- arguing he must 'dominate' US cities."

When a malignant narcissist like Trump says “Make America Great Again,” what he really means is make ME great-- or else. Malignant narcissists will demonize and destroy anyone who gets in their way, and the list of enemies always grows both because they are paranoid, and because their behavior provokes real opposition. Staffs are purged over and over for disloyalty. And the categories of people in the population who are enemies grows. First, we were defending the border from “infestations” by immigrants, sadistically taking away their children and putting them into concentration camps in the desert. Now those same Border Patrol agents-- who have shown their willingness to commit crimes against humanity for Trump-- are being drafted into service as Trump’s personal Republican Guard to attack our citizens in our streets.

...[W]with Trump, we have a Reichstag fire every night, as we watch a similar process take place in slow motion.

How bad can it get if Trump feels power slipping away? When Hitler knew his war was lost, he too went into a bunker. Before he committed suicide, he issued an order known as the “Nero Decree” calling for “scorched earth.” “All military transport and communication facilities, industrial establishments and supply depots, as well as anything else of value within Reich territory…will be destroyed.” Hitler told Speers, “It is not necessary to worry about what the German people will need for elemental survival…it is best for us to destroy even these things” because “only those who are inferior will remain after this struggle, for the good have already been killed.”

In other words, they failed to make Hitler great, and so the surviving Germans deserved to perish alongside him. Like a homicidal abusive spouse, he was determined that if he couldn’t have Germany then nobody would.

Trump is not Hitler. But like Hitler, he is a malignant narcissist. If we don’t make Trump great, he will predictably use his power to punish us. And if we don’t submit–he may just try to destroy us. Tear gas in the streets and one hundred and fifty thousand dead would suggest that he has already begun.

So what would Trump do to win? Anything. And one he is sure to try is announcing, perhaps distributing, some partially safe-- which means partially unsafe-- vaccine. The NY Times had a team of reporters-- Sharon LaFraniere, Katie Thomas, Noah Weiland, Peter Baker and Annie Karni-- look into it over the weekend. Trump has something called Operation Warp Speed whose goal is to develop a vaccine, something that usually takes 2 years, in October, in time for the election. The quintet wrote that "The ensuing race for a vaccine-- in the middle of a campaign in which the president’s handling of the pandemic is the key issue after he has spent his time in office undermining science and the expertise of the federal bureaucracy-- is now testing the system set up to ensure safe and effective drugs to a degree never before seen. Under constant pressure from a White House anxious for good news and a public desperate for a silver bullet to end the crisis, the government’s researchers are fearful of political intervention in the coming months and are struggling to ensure that the government maintains the right balance between speed and rigorous regulation, according to interviews with administration officials, federal scientists and outside experts. Even in a less politically charged environment, there would be a fraught debate about how much to accelerate the process of trials and approval. The longer that vaccines are tested before being released, the likelier they are to be safe and effective... [E]xperts inside and outside the government still say they fear the White House will push the Food and Drug Administration to overlook insufficient data and give at least limited emergency approval to a vaccine, perhaps for use by specific groups like front-line health care workers, before the vote on Nov. 3."




Trump will stop at nothing. And neither will Kushner-in-law, who is also more than a little concerned about a blanket pardon before Biden takes over.

“There are a lot of people on the inside of this process who are very nervous about whether the administration is going to reach their hand into the Warp Speed bucket, pull out one or two or three vaccines, and say, ‘We’ve tested it on a few thousand people, it looks safe, and now we are going to roll it out,’” said Dr. Paul A. Offit of the University of Pennsylvania, who is a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee.

“They are really worried about that,” he added. “And they should be.”

Mr. Trump relentlessly touts progress toward a vaccine, raising hopes of quick approval. Touring a North Carolina biotechnology lab last week, he vowed to “deliver a vaccine in record time.” In a tweet last month, he explicitly tied vaccines to his re-election hopes.

On a campaign call with supporters in Pennsylvania on Sunday evening, Mr. Trump said the “F.D.A. has been great, at my instruction,” and he again raised hopes of rapid progress.

“We expect to have a vaccine available very, very early before the end of the year, far ahead of schedule,” he said. “We’re very close to having that finalized.”

The president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, who is helping to steer the re-election campaign from the White House, is a regular participant in meetings of a board formed to oversee the vaccine effort.

...White House officials said that Mr. Trump would not distort the vaccine review process to help his campaign. “The rapid research, development, trials and eventual distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine is emblematic of President Trump’s highest priority: the health and safety of the American people,” said Judd Deere, a White House spokesman. “It has nothing to do with politics.”

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told lawmakers on Friday that he remained “cautiously optimistic that we will have a vaccine by the end of this year and as we go into 2021.”

Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, has not ruled out emergency approval of a vaccine.

“We would consider using an emergency use authorization if we felt that the risks associated with the vaccine were much lower than the risks of not having a vaccine,” he told the Journal of the American Medical Association in an online interview.

...Kushner, Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House coronavirus coordinator, and others interviewed Dr. Moncef Slaoui, a pharmaceutical industry veteran, and orchestrated his appointment as chief scientific adviser despite concerns within the Food and Drug Administration about conflicts of interest because of his financial ties to two companies that are developing a vaccine. Rather than being bothered by the conflict, Mr. Kushner and others reasoned that it took someone with such industry experience to oversee the effort.

Dr. Slaoui resigned from the board of Moderna, which has received nearly $1 billion in federal support to develop a vaccine. But as of May he still had nearly $10 million of stock in GlaxoSmithKline, a partner with the French drugmaker Sanofi, which last week signed a $2.1 billion agreement to produce 100 million doses. Dr. Slaoui, who is working on a $1 contract, cleared an ethics review by the Department of Health and Human Services and has said he is determined to avoid any conflict.

Shortly after Dr. Slaoui’s appointment, Dr. Marks resigned from the project he conceived and returned full-time to his post as a senior regulator at the Food and Drug Administration, where he will be the key decision maker on whether a vaccine merits approval.

The administration has conducted the vaccine hunt with a focus lacking in much of the rest of its pandemic response. Contracts have been executed at a brisk pace. Mobile trailers have been speedily delivered for experimental doses to be administered. When a company was short on needles, the Pentagon dispatched planes to deliver supplies within 48 hours.

The pharmaceutical companies are reporting the results of their trials at regular intervals, accelerating the review process. With the government paying much of the cost, the companies are beginning the process of manufacturing millions of doses of vaccine essentially on spec so that they can be distributed quickly if they secure approval.

The process has moved at a remarkable clip. Two vaccine candidates, one developed by Moderna in conjunction with Dr. Fauci’s institute and another by Pfizer, last week began Phase 3 trials, the final stage of clinical experimentation. Others are expected soon.

...Scientists have argued that it would be unwise to cut corners on a vaccine that is to be injected into some 300 million Americans, adding that a failed effort would fuel public distrust of vaccines generally.

...It is not clear that a vaccine approval shortly before the election would be an “October surprise” sufficient to alter the outcome of the vote. An announcement could give Americans hope that the end is in sight. But some Republican strategists said that it might not help Mr. Trump because his opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, would surely continue the vaccine process if elected.

“Does it turn everything around for him politically? I don’t know,” said Sarah Longwell, a conservative strategist and prominent Republican opponent of Mr. Trump who regularly conducts focus groups and has found that public attention is more focused on government relief checks and school reopenings.

“If the vaccine is an October surprise, there’s a lot of other things that are cutting against” it as a game-changer, she said.

The drug companies find themselves caught in the middle. While eager to bring products to market as quickly as possible, they face risks in moving too quickly in order to fit an election calendar, analysts said.

“They are acutely aware of the political dynamic here,” said Rob Smith, the director of Capital Alpha Partners, a research firm. A vaccine that flopped would jeopardize their broader business, he said, and it would not make sense “to take a huge reputational risk not just for your vaccine but for all the products across your portfolio to benefit the president politically.”

Dr. Fauci has expressed confidence that the system will hold.

“Historically, the F.D.A. has based their decisions on science,” he told a House committee last week. “They will do so this time also, I am certain.”

I'll wait a little and see-- like another six months or so after Trump, who has never cared much about "reputational risk," is gone.

Even A Corpse Could Probably Beat Trump-- And The Democratic Establishment Intends To Force That Choice On The Country

What happens when a narcissist runs a crisis? That's what Jennifer Senior asked in her NY Times column on Sunday, referring poetically to his "cramped and disordered mind, a darkened attic of fluttering bats" and to his "narcissistic personality disorder." She worried that in the midst of a global pandemic, his pathology is endangering not just institutions, but lives.

Let’s start with the basics. First: Narcissistic personalities like Trump harbor skyscraping delusions about their own capabilities. They exaggerate their accomplishments, focus obsessively on projecting power, and wish desperately to win.

What that means, during this pandemic: Trump says we’ve got plenty of tests available, when we don’t. He declares that Google is building a comprehensive drive-thru testing website, when it isn’t. He sends a Navy hospital ship to New York and it proves little more than an excuse for a campaign commercial, arriving and sitting almost empty in the Hudson. A New York hospital executive calls it a joke.

Second: The grandiosity of narcissistic personalities belies an extreme fragility, their egos as delicate as foam. They live in terror of being upstaged. They’re too thin skinned to be told they’re wrong.

What that means, during this pandemic: Narcissistic leaders never have, as Trump likes to say, the best people. They have galleries of sycophants. With the exceptions of Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, Trump has surrounded himself with a Z-team of dangerously inexperienced toadies and flunkies-- the bargain-bin rejects from Filene’s Basement -- at a time when we require the brightest and most imaginative minds in the country.

Faced with a historic public health crisis, Trump could have assembled a first-rate company of disaster preparedness experts. Instead he gave the job to his son-in-law, a man-child of breathtaking vapidity. Faced with a historic economic crisis, Trump could have assembled a team of Nobel-prize winning economists or previous treasury secretaries. Instead he talks to Larry Kudlow, a former CNBC host.

Meanwhile, Fauci and Birx measure every word they say like old-time apothecaries, hoping not to humiliate the narcissist-- never humiliate a narcissist-- while discreetly correcting his false hopes and falsehoods. They are desperately attempting to create a safe space for our president, when the president should be creating a safer nation for all of us.

Third: Narcissistic personalities love nothing more than engineering conflict and sowing division. It destabilizes everyone, keeps them in control.

What that means, during this pandemic: Trump is pitting state against state for precious resources, rather than coordinating a national response. (“It’s like being on eBay,” complained Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York last week.) His White House is a petty palace of competing power centers. He picks fights with Democratic officials and members of the press, when all the public craves is comfort.

Narcissistic personalities don’t do comfort. They cannot fathom the needs of other hearts.

Fourth: Narcissistic personalities are vindictive. On a clear day, you can see their grudges forever.

What that means, during this pandemic: Trump is playing favorites with governors who praise him and punishing those who fail to give him the respect he believes he deserves. “If they don’t treat you right, don’t call,” he told Vice President Mike Pence.

His grudge match with New York is now especially lethal. When asked on Friday whether New York will have enough ventilators, Trump bluntly answered “No,” and then blamed the state.

And most relevant, as far as history is concerned: Narcissistic personalities are weak.

What that means, during this pandemic: Trump is genuinely afraid to lead. He can’t bring himself to make robust use of the Defense Production Act, because the buck would stop with him. (To this day, he insists states should be acquiring their own ventilators.) When asked about delays in testing, he said, “I don’t take responsibility at all.” During Friday’s news conference, he added the tests “we inherited were “broken, were obsolete,” when this form of coronavirus didn’t even exist under his predecessor.

This sounds an awful lot like one of the three sentences that Homer Simpson swears will get you through life: “It was like that when I got here.

” ...Every aspect of Trump’s crisis management has been annexed by his psychopathology. As Americans die, he boasts about his television ratings. As Americans die, he crows that he’s No. 1 on Facebook, which isn’t close to true.

But it is true that all eyes are on him. He’s got a captive audience, an attention-addict’s dream come to life. It’s just that he, like all narcissistic personalities, has no clue how disgracefully-- how shamefully, how deplorably-- he’ll be enshrined in memory.

David Frum, a #NeverTrump Republican, pointed out in his Atlantic column yesterday that we're all paying for Trump's failings: This Is Trump’s Fault. "The United States," he wrote, "is on trajectory to suffer more sickness, more dying, and more economic harm from this virus than any other comparably developed country. That the pandemic occurred is not Trump’s fault. The utter unpreparedness of the United States for a pandemic is Trump’s fault. The loss of stockpiled respirators to breakage because the federal government let maintenance contracts lapse in 2018 is Trump’s fault. The failure to store sufficient protective medical gear in the national arsenal is Trump’s fault. That states are bidding against other states for equipment, paying many multiples of the precrisis price for ventilators, is Trump’s fault. Air travelers summoned home and forced to stand for hours in dense airport crowds alongside infected people? That was Trump’s fault too. Ten weeks of insisting that the coronavirus is a harmless flu that would miraculously go away on its own? Trump’s fault again. The refusal of red-state governors to act promptly, the failure to close Florida and Gulf Coast beaches until late March? That fault is more widely shared, but again, responsibility rests with Trump: He could have stopped it, and he did not."

And he blames Trump for the streams of lies coming out of Fox hosts. He blames Trump for "the false hope of instant cures and nonexistent vaccines" and he blames Trump for the severity of the economic crisis-- "things would have been less bad if he had acted faster instead of sending out his chief economic adviser and his son Eric to assure Americans that the first stock-market dips were buying opportunities." And more and more and more... always an unending flow of lies, bullshit, incompetence, venality, arrogance and mistakes. "For three years," wrote Frum, "Trump has blathered and bluffed and bullied his way through an office for which he is utterly inadequate... Trump’s instinct to dodge and blame had devastating consequences for Americans. Every governor and mayor who needed the federal government to take action, every science and medical adviser who hoped to prevent Trump from doing something stupid or crazy, had to reckon with Trump’s psychic needs as their single biggest problem."

As the pandemic kills, as the economic depression tightens its grip, Donald Trump has consistently put his own needs first. Right now, when his only care should be to beat the pandemic, Trump is renegotiating his debts with his bankers and lease payments with Palm Beach County.

He has never tried to be president of the whole United States, but at most 46 percent of it, to the extent that serving even the 46 percent has been consistent with his supreme concerns: stealing, loafing, and whining. Now he is not even serving the 46 percent. The people most victimized by his lies and fantasies are the people who trusted him, the more conservative Americans who harmed themselves to prove their loyalty to Trump. An Arkansas pastor told The Washington Post of congregants “ready to lick the floor” to support the president’s claim that there is nothing to worry about. On March 15, the Trump-loyal governor of Oklahoma tweeted a since-deleted photo of himself and his children at a crowded restaurant buffet. “Eating with my kids and all my fellow Oklahomans at the @CollectiveOKC. It’s packed tonight!” Those who took their cues from Trump and the media who propagandized for him, and all Americans, will suffer for it.

Governments often fail. From Pearl Harbor to the financial crisis of 2008, you can itemize a long list of missed warnings and overlooked dangers that cost lives and inflicted hardship. But in the past, Americans could at least expect public spirit and civic concern from their presidents.

Trump has mouthed the slogan “America first,” but he has never acted on it. It has always been “Trump first.” His business first. His excuses first. His pathetic vanity first.

Trump has taken millions in payments from the Treasury. He has taken millions in payments from U.S. businesses and foreign governments. He has taken millions in payments from the Republican Party and his own inaugural committee. He has taken so much that does not belong to him, that was unethical and even illegal for him to take. But responsibility? No, he will not take that.

Yet responsibility falls upon Trump, whether he takes it or not. No matter how much he deflects and insults and snivels and whines, this American catastrophe is on his hands and on his head.

The 2020 election will be about one thing: Trump. The Democrats are going to run a corpse and Trump could actually lose to him. What's shaping up is a strictly classic lesser of two evils election and right now-- when leadership really counts for a lot-- Trump is losing. People are unenthusiastic about Biden but-- other than me-- they don't detest him. They detest Trump though. And every day he gives us more and more reason to hate his guts and wish him all the worst.

Stupidity by Chip Proser

It Isn't Just Gaslighters And Narcissts-- It's Also Fascists

I ran this Democracy Now video of fascism expert Jason Stanley being interviewed late last night and I don't think enough people saw it. So-- since Trump is still sitting in the White House-- here it is again. Reading Stephanie Sarkis' Forbes essay on how gaslights and narcissists create crises and then act like they solved them reminded me of how fascists also create crises and then act like they solved them. Perfect position for Trump-- gaslight, narcissist and fascist.

Sarkis wrote that after they "solve" the crisis they invented, they "demand accolades." Sound like anyone know and hate? She says they do it to "create support within their base. And with 2020 elections right around the corner, Trump knows the importance of manufacturing an enemy and then portraying himself as the only person who could 'conquer' this manufactured enemy."

The most recent case in point is Trump's tariffs on Mexico. Trump is touting himself as the key factor in getting a border agreement with Mexico. However, the New York Times reported that the U.S. and Mexico had reached an agreement on border policies months before Trump's tariff threat.

Trump tweeted the following on June 7th:

If we are able to make the deal with Mexico, & there is a good chance that we will, they will begin purchasing Farm & Agricultural products at very high levels, starting immediately. If we are unable to make the deal, Mexico will begin paying Tariffs at the 5% level on Monday!

He then followed with this tweet on the same day:

I am pleased to inform you that The United States of America has reached a signed agreement with Mexico. The Tariffs scheduled to be implemented by the U.S. on Monday, against Mexico, are hereby indefinitely suspended.

Again, these tweets were sent out two months after an agreement had already been reached. Trump then went after the New York Times, which accurately reported that a border agreement was in place two months ago. And as he has done several times before, Trump called the press the "Enemy of the People." He tweeted, "The Failing @nytimes, & ratings challenged [sic] @CNN will do anything possible to see our Country fail! They are truly The Enemy of the People!"

Trump is more frequently adding "Corrupt" to "Fake" when describing the news media. So in addition to claiming that the media have made stories up, Trump is now accusing them of receiving money or power in exchange for false stories. This is a common tactic of gaslighters/narcissists in power-- they will accuse any accurate media outlets as traitors to the country and its leader. Gaslighters/narcissists particularly accuse those in the media of being corrupt or making up stories, and they will go after the media at a fever pitch. For example, see the history of the Argentinean government going after Grupo Clarin.

Trump has manufactured crises time and time again and then tried to make himself look like the savior of that crisis. Look closer at Trump's manufactured border crisis. In reality, illegal border crossings have actually decreased in the U.S for 46 years. He also created the crisis of the "criminal immigrant." In reality, immigrants, illegal and legal, actually have a lower rate of criminal activity than citizens born in the U.S.

Trump also focused on his belief that a majority of drugs have passed through the U.S. border via illegal entry points when the truth is that a vast majority of drugs enter through legal entry points. If Trump was truly concerned about drugs entering the U.S., a much more effective course of action would have been to beef up security at those legal entry points. But that wouldn't have fit Trump's "bad immigrants" narrative.

Trump also manufactured a "crisis of patriotism" regarding NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. Kneeling during the anthem was a protest against police brutality and racial injustice, but it was spun by Trump as an issue of "patriotism." At a rally in Alabama in September 2017, Trump said to the crowd, "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now!'" Trump said to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, "This is a very winning, strong issue for me," according to a sworn deposition of Jones. Pay attention to Trump's use of the word "winning." Trump views others as "winners" and "losers", another common gaslighter/narcissist tactic. And Trump knew exactly what he was doing. Narcissists/gaslighters in power will rile up their base by declaring a behavior they don't like to be "unpatriotic." Interestingly, it has only been since 2009 that NFL players came out for the anthem, contrary to a common belief of that this was a long-standing tradition. But Trump proclaimed victory when the NFL issued a statement in May 2018 that required all players to "stand and show respect for the flag." The NFL Players Association filed a grievance, and the NFL and NFL Players Association agreed to stop implementing this new policy until discussions were held.

Why do gaslighters/narcissists manufacture crises and then proclaim that they have solved them? Because it gives their supporters the false belief that the narcissist/gaslighter is accomplishing great things. It also takes the focus off real crises in which the gaslighter/narcissist has failed to take action. Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, for example. And if the gaslighter/narcissist finally provides help or aid to an area, he still plays the savior and tells the people they should show gratitude towards him.





How do you counteract this gaslighting/narcissist tactic? Call it out for what it is-- a blatant attempt to cater to supporters. Present facts that contradict the gaslighter/narcissist's assertions that first, there is a crisis, and second, they are the solver of that crisis. If you work with this type of "crisis manufacturer," keep documentation of the statements and actions taken by the gaslighter/narcissist. In addition, a constant stream of truthful information is the best way to counteract this type of behavior.

Does that work when the gaslight/narcissist is also a fascist tyrant? Not a chance. Tom Steyer has a better idea: throw the bum out. Steyer is amping up pressure on the House Democrats who should be doing their duty and impeaching him. Steyer's group, Need to Impeach, kicked off a campaign to target 12 districts held by Democratic lawmakers who do not yet back impeachment. The group plans to spend $360,000 in the first few weeks of the effort, which will fund targeted digital ads, billboards, organizing activities, and events like so-called “Impeach-ins,” which are intended to make the case for impeachment.

The dozen Democrats whom Need to Impeach is targeting are either all prominent members of party leadership or hold positions on key House committees. They include Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the number three House Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the Democratic Caucus Chairman...

Other lawmakers being targeted by Need to Impeach include Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), a candidate for president and Pelosi ally who sits on the House Judiciary and Intelligence panels; Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), who chairs the powerful Appropriations Committee and is another close Pelosi ally; and several Democrats representing liberal districts in southern California and Florida.

Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) is another target. A Need to Impeach source provided an example of a billboard that could soon be going up in his district. “Rep. Luján: We need an impeachment inquiry now,” it reads. The billboard displays the phone number for the D.C. office of Luján, a top member of House Democratic leadership and candidate for Senate, and urges constituents to call in with their thoughts.

The new campaign by Need to Impeach comes as a growing number of House Democrats have begun calling for the launch of impeachment proceedings against the president. The group, along with others organizing for impeachment, believe that building support among voters in progressive districts is key to persuading lawmakers on the fence to take a stand—which would ultimately put pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to take up impeachment, an option she has repeatedly dismissed at this stage. Some 60 Democrats have so far come out in support of launching an inquiry, accounting for a quarter of the party’s House membership.

In a statement, Steyer said that momentum behind impeachment is growing by the day. “The leaders of the Democratic Party deserve to know where their constituents stand, and alongside millions of Americans, we’re calling on them to stop putting political expediency ahead of what’s right,” he said.

Need to Impeach has targeted 47 members of Congress so far this year, and the group says its organizers and volunteers have visited over 100 congressional offices to make the impeachment case. In January, Steyer announced he would pour $6 million into a nationwide ad campaign to boost his message.

The agitating from Steyer has gotten him crosswise with Pelosi, who represents the hedge fund billionaire’s hometown of San Francisco. Steyer has blasted Pelosi’s declaration Trump isn’t “worth” the effort: “Shall America just stop fighting for our principles and do what’s politically convenient?” he asked in a March tweet.

We caught up with Heather Brewer, campaign manager for the progressive Democrat who Luján is running against, New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver. She told us today that Oliver "knows that holding elected officials accountable is a key part of what makes our democracy work. That’s why she fully supports initiating impeachment hearings. And that’s she agrees with Need to Impeach that voters must make their voices heard  to hold the Congressman to account for his position on impeachment."






UPDATE: Time For Pelosi And Her Team To Retire

Progressive Democrat Shahid Buttar is primarying Pelosi from the left. He told us that "Voices who oppose impeachment, like Speaker Pelosi's, are the same ones that never saw Trump coming in the first place. We shouldn't accept their supposed wisdom as gospel now, especially when their positions have demonstrably emboldened our criminal president to escalate his attacks on America and our Constitution. Even if Pelosi were right about impeachment being a losing political proposition-- which she is not-- it remains a constitutional imperative. Failing to initiate impeachment will ensure that kleptocracy will be accepted, whereas initiating the process will put purple state activists in a position to force the hands of Republican Senators to either show up for their oaths of office or find a new career. Nothing would be better for the Democratic Party's base heading in the 2020 general election. This is no time for timidity."

The Only Thing Trump Has Never Denied Is That He Has A Mushroom Dick

Trump would rather people see him as a tax cheat than as a loser. He's both, of course. If you think his base of drooling morons and racists cares, you haven't been paying any attention at all. They don't. He's their hero. When he said he could shoot someone in the face on 5th Avenue and not lose a supporter, he was 100% correct. But the NY Times isn't publishing for the drooling morons and racists who back Trump, are they? The 5 biggest takeaways from the investigation into his 1985-1994 taxes:

• Trump was deep in the red even as he peddled deal-making advice

Trump: The Art of the Deal came out in 1987. It became a best seller-- and a powerful vehicle for the self-spun myth of the self-made billionaire that would ultimately help propel him to the presidency.

Mr. Trump has long attributed his first run of business reversals and bankruptcies to the recession that hit three years later, in 1990. But the new tax information reveals that he was already in deep financial distress when his master-of-the-universe memoir hit the shelves.

For Mr. Trump, the 1980s were a frenzy of acquisition and construction, buoyed by hundreds of millions of dollars of borrowed money. In 1985, for the first time, Forbes’s “rich list” included Mr. Trump individually, independent of his father. But his estimated net worth according to the magazine, $600 million, included the real estate empire Fred Trump still owned.

With Mr. Trump’s vast debt and other expenses on his properties-- among them Trump Tower and the Grand Hyatt hotel in Manhattan, and two Atlantic City casinos-- his fortunes were already on the way down. In 1985, his core businesses reported a loss of $46.1 million; they also carried over a $5.6 million loss for earlier years.

Because those businesses were generally created as partnerships, they did not pay federal income taxes themselves. Instead, their gains, and their losses, flowed onto Mr. Trump’s ledger. To put his results in perspective, The Times compared them with detailed information that the I.R.S. compiles on an annual one-third sampling of high earners. Most of them appeared, like Mr. Trump, to be businessmen who received what is known as pass-through income.

For 1985, the I.R.S. information indicates this: Only three individual taxpayers in the sampling reported bigger losses than Mr. Trump.

• In multiple years, he appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual taxpayer

The tax results for the years that followed trace an arc of continued empire building-- and gathering loss.

He bought the Eastern Airlines shuttle for $365 million; it never made a profit, and he spent more than $7 million a month to keep it flying. His new Trump Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino, opened in 1990 with more than $800 million in debt, sucked revenue from his other casinos, pulling them along into the red.

And so, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual taxpayer, according to the I.R.S. information on high earners-- a publicly available database with taxpayers’ identifying details removed. Indeed, in 1990 and 1991, his core businesses lost more than $250 million each year-- more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the sampling for those years.

The tax code allows owners of commercial property to write down the cost of their buildings-- a valuable tax shelter known as depreciation. In The Art of the Deal, Mr. Trump cited one of his Atlantic City casinos to show how it works. Built for $400 million and depreciated at a rate of 4 percent a year, he said, it could allow him to shelter $16 million in taxable income annually. But Mr. Trump’s example, meant to demonstrate the magic of depreciation, shows something else: Depreciation alone cannot account for the hundreds of millions of dollars in losses he declared on his taxes.

• He paid no federal income taxes for eight of the 10 years

Business owners like Mr. Trump may also use their losses to avoid paying taxes on future income. Over the years, those losses rolled into a $915.7 million free pass, known as a net operating loss, that appeared on his 1995 tax returns, pages of which were mailed anonymously to The Times during the 2016 campaign.

The new tax information shows how Mr. Trump’s net operating losses snowballed, reaching $418 million in 1991. That was fully 1 percent of all the losses that the I.R.S. reported had been declared by individual taxpayers that year.

And the red ink continued to accumulate apace. In all, Mr. Trump lost so much money that he was able to avoid paying any federal income taxes for eight of the 10 years.

• He made millions posing as a corporate raider-- until investors realized he never followed through

For a time, Mr. Trump was able to stave off his coming collapse with the help of a new public role: He traded on his business-titan brand to present himself as a corporate raider. He would acquire shares in a company with borrowed money, suggest publicly that he was contemplating a takeover, then quietly sell on the resulting bump in the stock price. An occasional quote from a high-profile associate helped burnish the myth.

“He has an appetite like a Rocky Mountain vulture,” his stockbroker, Alan C. Greenberg, told the Wall Street Journal in 1987. “He’d like to own the world.”

From 1986 through 1989, Mr. Trump declared $67.3 million in gains from stocks and other assets bought and sold within a year.

But ultimately, the figures show, he lost most, if not all, of those gains after investors stopped taking his takeover talk seriously.

• His interest income spiked in 1989 at $52.9 million, but the source is a mystery

Amid the hundreds of figures on 10 years of tax transcripts, one number is particularly striking: $52.9 million in interest income that Mr. Trump reported in 1989.

In the three previous years, Mr. Trump had reported $460,566, then $5.5 million, then $11.8 million in interest.

The source of that outlier $52.9 million is something of a mystery.

Taxpayers can receive interest income from a variety of sources, including bonds, bank accounts and mortgages. Hard data on the workings of Mr. Trump’s businesses is hard to come by. But public findings from New Jersey casino regulators show no evidence that he owned anything capable of generating that much interest. Nor is there any such evidence in a 1990 report on his financial condition, prepared by accountants he hired at his bankers’ request.

Mr. Trump’s interest income fell almost as quickly as it rose. By 1992, he was reporting only $3.6 million.

As Chris Cillizza noted for CNN yesterday, it's an emperor has no clothes moment for Señor Trumpanzee. The pig's "entire persona is built on a singular idea: He's the brash, break-all-the-rules billionaire. Like him or hate him, you can't help but admire his massive wealth and the smarts that allowed him to accrue it." What a laugh! And Cillizza points to the Times/ report to prove it: "The numbers show that in 1985, Mr. Trump reported losses of $46.1 million from his core businesses-- largely casinos, hotels and retail space in apartment buildings. They continued to lose money every year, totaling $1.17 billion in losses for the decade. In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, The Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners. His core business losses in 1990 and 1991-- more than $250 million each year-- were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years."

More than $1 billion in losses in a single decade!

More than double the losses of the nearest other taxpayer in 1990 and 1991!

The single biggest loser (of money) of all American taxpayers in the period 1985-1994!

What the Times story does is something simple but profound: It punctures the balloon-- puffed up by years of Trumpian marketing and salesmanship-- that the President of the United States was some sort of business genius. In fact, Trump was one of-- if not the-- biggest failures (in terms of money making and losing) in the country during a decade-long stretch. His ability to maintain his wealth and, eventually, to grow it was born of taking advantage of a system of tax laws and loopholes friendly to big business.

...Trump explicitly ran for president on the idea that his business acumen gave him a unique-- and more valuable-- perspective on how to run the country than anyone else who had ever held the office (and certainly the other Republicans and Democrats running for the White House in 2016.)

...The logic is simple: I am rich. I made all of this money for myself over all these years but now I want to make the country-- and you, individual voter!-- rich too. Trump was pitching a secularized version of the Joel Osteen aspirational gospel; I can teach you to think and act like me, and, in so doing, you can be just like me!

A huge part of Trump's appeal was encased in the idea that he was the American dream: A super-wealthy guy with a beautiful wife, lots of homes and his own plane with his name on the side. His years as a reality TV star served to codify that idea in peoples' minds; Trump was always getting off a helicopter or riding in a limousine-- in the middle of some major deal that would make him millions.

Thanks to the New York Times, we know now all of that was pure American myth-making. Trump wasn't-- as he tried to portray himself-- a self-made man at all.

His wealth was hugely derived from his father. (Trump famously/infamously said his father, Fred, gave him only a "small" $1 million loan as he began his career as a real estate developer.) And now we know that during a critical period of his business life, Trump was losing more than $1 billion in a 10-year span-- a total that made him one of the single largest losers of money in America at the time.

Put plainly: The story that Donald Trump has been telling himself and the American public for much of his life-- and especially since becoming a presidential candidate in 2015-- isn't true. And it's more than an exaggeration. It's the opposite of what happened. Trump was gifted huge amounts of money by his father. He lost it at eye-popping rates.

Will any of this matter to Trump's supporters or, more broadly, to the 2020 electorate? Probably not. Minds have been made up-- on both sides-- about Trump for a very long time. Facts and reality don't seem to puncture those opinions about the President.

But whether voters vote on this issue next November is, really, beside the point. And the point is this: Donald Trump is not the person he sold himself to be to the American public in 2016. Period.

Tuesday I took an odd call-- and stayed on the phone for two hours with someone I didn't know. He recently wrote the autobiography of another brash New Yorker who happens to be a Trump doppelgänger. Writing the book-- he wrote every single word, just the way Tony Schwartz wrote every single word of The Art of the Deal-- he came to loathe the monster he was helping to mythologize, just as Schwartz had. He told me there wasn't a single word of truth in the book, that it was just one self-serving lie after the other. He described his subject to me as the very definition of a malignant narcissistic sociopath, which is also the way mental health experts describe Trumpanzee.

Malignant narcissism is "a psychological syndrome comprising an extreme mix of narcissism, antisocial behavior, aggression, and sadism. Grandiose, and always ready to raise hostility levels, the malignant narcissist undermines families and organizations in which they are involved, and dehumanizes the people with whom they associate." Sound like anyone you know?

By understanding the characteristics of a high functioning sociopath, you can see how this individual may be manipulating and exploiting you. They are usually very charming and clever and, at first, their actions may seem genuine. Over time, their lies, deceptions, and lack of empathy are exposed to reveal their sociopathic nature. These characteristics traits include:

• High IQ: High functioning sociopaths often have a higher IQ than other sociopaths or people without personality disorders. This helps them plan, manipulate, and exploit others.
• Lack of empathy: Difficulty in empathizing with others or understanding the emotional consequences of their actions.
• Narcissism: They often have strong self-love and grandiose self-image. This occurs because of low esteem and delusional beliefs.
• Charming: Although most sociopaths lack empathy, they are capable of mimicking and manipulating emotions to appear charming and normal.
• Secretive: A sociopath doesn't feel the need to share intimate details with others unless it is to manipulate.
• Sexually deviant: Since they lack guilt, remorse, and emotional attachments, sociopaths tend to have affairs and engage in the questionable sexual activity.
• Sensitive to criticism: Despite their lack of empathy, sociopaths desire the approval of others. They feel entitled to admiration and are quick to anger when criticized.
• Impulsive behavior: Sociopaths often live in the moment and will do what they feel is needed to reach their immediate goals.
• Compulsive lying: Disregarding the truth to make themselves look better or get what they want.
• Needing constant stimulation: Sociopaths often get bored easily and need to be actively engaged.
• Addictive Behavior: Their compulsive mindset may result in addiction to drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, or other addictive behaviors.
• Criminal Behavior: Criminal activity associated with sociopaths could include theft, assault, or destruction of property.

Time for a new president? I have a good idea on that... if you're so disposed.

Or do you want 4 more years? If you want for more years of Trump, just help make Status Quo Joe the Democratic nominee. He's exactly what voters don't want. This morning an old friend wrote me a long letter about Biden. She thinks he would be a much worse disaster for Democrats than Hillary was. "As bad as we think Hillary was, Biden would be a MUCH MUCH WORSE candidate than she was. She is gigantically smarter than him, for one, and she would have been much better than him policy wise in several areas-- women’s health issues for sure and racial and social issues, and maybe even protecting the environment. I don’t think she would have compromised about Social Security and Medicare whereas Biden would in a heartbeat (and has historically). She would have been much stronger about health care coverage, too, although perhaps not behind medicare for all-- after all she did try in the 1990’s-- but Biden would be totally awful. Oh, and I have said-- I heard him speak-- she is eloquent and he is a bumbling jerk. He is a lousy speaker and Trump will bully him and make him look stupid quickly and easily, whereas Hillary stood up to Trump and did well in the debates. Biden would fare very poorly-- he is not swift on his feet. As you said, he is not smart by a long shot, he is an idiot."

Good. The second part of her letter is disturbing though, for several reasons: "My friend’s husband, a progressive with whom I talk politics occasionally," she wrote "is now behind Biden all the way. When I entered their house recently he yelled, "This is Biden country." I offered to send him stuff about Biden but he was not interested and said he wouldn’t read it. I am very disappointed in him and have revised my opinion of him-- he is an idiot. Literally and clearly, he is not a smart guy. He keeps up with politics but still, he is not bright. I think he is a rigid thinker and he is feeling relief that he can get behind someone he thinks could beat Trump-- totally wrong, of course. Biden would lose to Trump, unquestionably. His horrible history and poor speaking ability would and should ruin him as a candidate."

Both Biden and Bernie are very much today like they were in the 1970s. Biden is grudgingly apologizing for everything he ever did. Bernie embraces his earliest policies.

Behind The Scenes And In Plain View: Mental Case, Criminal, Both?

Reporting for Vanity Fair this week, Emily Jane Fox, wrote that "Stephanie Winston Wolkoff was the mastermind event producer behind Trump’s inaugural celebration, which has since come under S.D.N.Y. investigation. Now, taped conversations reveal Wolkoff’s concerns with how money was being spent, the general chaos of the process, the involvement of the Trump family, and the people in charge, namely Rick Gates and Tom Barrack." If you haven't been watching Maddow with any kind of regularity over the past couple of years, you may be unaware that Trump's inaugural committee was a piggy bank for bribes from criminals-- both domestic and foreign-- to Trump and his contemptible spawn.

Last February, the New York Times published an article centered on WIS, headlined “Trump’s Inaugural Committee Paid $26 million to Firm of First Lady’s Adviser.” The inaugural committee had raised a stunning $107 million-- about twice what Barack Obama had hauled in 2009-- from donors such as Sheldon Adelson and corporations like AT&T. But as the Times reported, the tax form revealed profligate spending-- nearly $10 million on travel; $4.6 million on salaries and benefits; and $100,000 to Rick Gates, the former campaign aide and deputy chairman of the inauguration who, about a week later, became one of Robert Mueller’s first major cooperating witnesses. Some $40 million was publicly unaccounted for. Wolkoff, as the event planner in charge, became the face of the disarray. The Times story quoted an official from a government watchdog group accusing her of “fiscal mismanagement at its worst.” ... Sarah Huckabee Sanders would later say, “The president was focused on the transition during that time, and not on any of the planning for the inauguration.”

...Wolkoff had made a career in the events business, but she knew from the outset the inauguration would be a unique, and uniquely Trumpian, experience. First, she was a political novice who knew little about what an inauguration entailed. Then, there was Trump’s controversial reputation. Upon accepting the post on the Friday after his election, Wolkoff quickly reached out to her network of vendors. Most of them, according to people familiar with these conversations, resisted the opportunity to work with Trump. Even Burnett, who Trump enlisted to conjure up reality-show-like gimmicks (such as flying a gaggle of drones over the crowd), wanted to keep his involvement private.

Moreover, and perhaps not surprisingly, Trump’s family wanted to be involved in certain aspects of the coordination... [Wolkoff made] regular presentations to Trump, Melania, and the Trump family about various decisions, so that they could weigh in. (White House spokespeople have previously denied that the Trumps were involved in any planning, and said they knew little about the events.)

Trump was focused on the big-picture theatrics. He wanted to arrive on the Mall in a military plane with a military escort, much as he had arrived for tapings of The Apprentice on Trump Organization helicopters. He also wanted to have a full military parade, as well as tanks and helicopters on the ground...

In large part, Wolkoff worried about potential ethical issues surrounding the First Family-elect and their businesses. After all, Gates had been staying in a suite at the Trump Hotel for most of the inaugural planning. More than a dozen inaugural staffers had also been staying there. The Times reported last month that WIS alone had charged $31,000 for hotel rooms in the span of less than two months, including almost $18,000 at the Trump International Hotel. That did not include what was charged for room service, meals, and travel. In all, the Trump International Hotel was paid more than $1.5 million in inaugural funds, according to the Times. (Wolkoff’s contract states that the inaugural committee would reimburse WIS for travel, long-distance phone calls, mail-delivery services, and expenses connected to the performance of its work. WIS stands for “Who Is She,” Wolkoff’s play on her own anonymity.)

During the course of planning, Wolkoff had corresponded with Ivanka about the cost of using the Trump Hotel for events leading up to the swearing-in ceremony. On December 10, 2016, a Trump Organization employee sent an estimate for a ballroom rental and food and beverage minimum to use the Trump Hotel space for eight days. The price she quoted was $3.6 million, according to an e-mail. A week later, Gates e-mailed Ivanka about the cost. In this exchange, first published this past December by ProPublica and WNYC, Wolkoff flagged her concern. “These events are in PE’s [the president-elect’s] honor at his hotel and one of them is for family and close friends. Please take into consideration that when this is audited it will become public knowledge,” she wrote. (Peter Mirijanian, a spokesperson for Ivanka’s counsel Abbe Lowell, said in a statement: “When contacted by someone working on the inauguration, Ms. Trump passed the inquiry on to a hotel official and said only that any resulting discussions should be at a ‘fair market rate.’ Ms. Trump was not involved in any additional discussions.”)

For an event producer used to detailed lists and punctilious itemization, Wolkoff was often caught off guard by the ad-hoc nature of the committee. According to the two people familiar with the matter, Gates approached a couple individuals working on the inauguration and asked if they would be willing to be paid directly for their work by a donor, rather than by the inaugural committee. They had received more donations than they’d initially anticipated, Gates told these people. Skirting the usual payment route could allow the inaugural committee to avoid reporting the full amount raised from donors.

Wolkoff frequently told Melania about her concerns regarding Gates, these people said. She relayed her concern about the high access level of his security pass within Trump Tower and his closeness with the Trump family. In her view, these people said, he exacerbated a situation already fraught with potential conflicts of interest. Members of the inaugural committee talked about how he frequently worked out of Donald Trump Jr.’s office. He was in constant communication with the adult children in order to keep them in the loop about decisions surrounding the inauguration.

Wolkoff also questioned Gates and Barrack about pricing and budgets across the board, according to the people familiar with the conversations. She started to grow concerned about being left out of meetings, particularly as she raised more red flags. Because part of her responsibilities included reviewing all budgets from her vendors and presenting them to other members of the inaugural committee, she studied the line items in order to be able to explain them. At points, she could not justify the numbers coming in. After circulation of a quote from one of their largest event-production vendors, Hargrove LLC, Wolkoff was shocked that no one in the organization appeared willing to question the figures. She suggested that the quote seemed far beyond what the Obama inaugural committee would have been charged in 2009. She sent an e-mail to her team and Barrack on December 31, 2016. “I am DISGUSTED by [Hargrove’s] lack of transparency and entitlement to [the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s] funding,” she wrote. “I can not approve any budget line items because I do not have a clue what these numbers represent!!”

One of the most concerning aspects to Wolkoff’s team, according to the people familiar with the situation, was the amount of money and attention being spent on Barrack’s chairman dinner, which he hosted on an evening before the swearing-in. A draft guest list for the event from days before the dinner included the likes of retired Lieutenant General Mike Flynn, G.O.P. fund-raiser Elliott Broidy, Michael Cohen, and key officials in the incoming administration. Among the list marked as confirmed were seven people described as “foreign ministers” for Saudi Arabia, one foreign minister from Qatar, and one from the United Arab Emirates. They were the only people on the list who were unnamed. (On Tuesday, ProPublica published a memo that showed Barrack’s investment firm planned to profit from its connections to the Trump administration. A spokesperson called it “an outline of a proposed potential business plan which was never acted upon or implemented.”)

...Much has been made of the various problems with the inauguration, from the lackluster crowd size to the president’s own “American carnage” speech, which struck a tone so dark that George W. Bush was reportedly heard calling it “some weird shit.” But Wolkoff’s part, the event itself, went off without a hitch, and the family was pleased. The day after the swearing-in ceremony was Wolkoff’s birthday. The Trumps sent flowers to the Trump Hotel room where she had been staying. She flew back to New York on a military plane with Melania, her stylist, hairdresser, makeup artist, and the rest of the Trump family, apart from the president, Ivanka, and Jared Kushner, who remained in Washington.

Much is still unknown about how inaugural funds were managed, or if the unaccounted for $40-odd million will ever be publicly explained. It’s unclear whether there was foreign influence, or illicit attempts to profit off of proceedings. What Gates has offered investigators—about anything, really, but about the inauguration, in particular—is also unclear. How deep the Southern District’s investigation into all of this is yet unknown. But much like some of Cohen’s other taped conversations, the discussions with Wolkoff about the inauguration may have turned out to be consequential. On the witness stand during Paul Manafort’s trial in Virginia last summer, prosecutors asked Gates if he charged personal expenses to the committee. “It’s possible,” he responded.

As investigators continue to pursue the matter, they may find themselves in a familiar situation: seeking out former Trump allies-turned-adversaries who saw it all go down firsthand. One of the most inexplicable plot points in the whirling Trump drama has been the president’s public treatment of his former lawyer. Trump was aware that Cohen possessed all manner of damaging information about him, and yet he wasted few opportunities to disparage him publicly. Ultimately, Cohen implicated Trump in federal campaign-finance violations as he pleaded guilty. He spent more than 70 hours cooperating with federal investigators, opening his book to tell them what he knew about the president, his business, and the campaign. While Wolkoff’s treatment has been gentler, she’s been similarly isolated and publicly disparaged. And now, what she knows could be of interest to investigators, too.

Yesterday, ProPublica updated their reporting with an article by Justin Elliott about how the Trump family was able to enrich themselves illegally, over-charging massively for the use of Trump International Hotel and pocketing the extra cash without reporting it or paying taxes on it. A truly corrupt scumbag and his well-trained family were taking over the executive branch of government and turning it into a criminal enterprise-- an organized crime family... right from Day One. Trump's life long penchant for felony coexists with increasing mental illness, something that is almost always left out of news reporting, as author and journalist Amanda Ripley reported this week, asserting, correctly, that Trump Is a Mental Health Story.

I tried an experiment the other day. To make sense of Trump’s behavior, I did not call foreign policy experts or pundits. That would be like calling an astrologer to explain a flu pandemic. Instead, I called Wendy Behary, who wrote the book Disarming the Narcissist and has treated hundreds of narcissistic clients, including surgeons, Wall Street executives, and other powerful people, in her private practice in New Jersey. It was one of the most useful conversations I’ve had about Trump in months.

Unlike the Washington Post or the New York Times, Behary has never once been surprised by Trump’s behavior. “His behavior is not remarkable. It’s predictable. It’s exactly what we’d expect,” she says. “He just continues to be a consistent version of who he appears to be.”



So far, most of the mainstream stories about Trump’s narcissism have been about whether mental health professionals should diagnose him from afar. That’s a worthy debate. But journalists are not psychiatrists. We are not bound by the rules of the American Psychiatric Association. We are bound by a duty to inform the public, without fear, drawing upon any source that may prove useful.

At this point, it’s not biased to acknowledge that Trump behaves in ways that most mental health professionals recognize as symptomatic of a larger problem. It’s not unreasonable to ask them to help explain and even predict his behavior. In fact, it may be more biased not to do so.

What if we got new sources to help us through this “remarkable” time? This doesn’t mean bashing Trump. To the contrary. In order to treat her narcissistic clients, Behary has learned to empathize with them. This isn’t easy to do, she admits, but it is essential--  so that she doesn’t mistake them for being strategic or simply evil. “Narcissists don’t set out to harm people,” she says. “They will harm you--  but it’s to protect themselves. It’s not personal.” Taking narcissists personally is a very common waste of time and energy.

Narcissists, for example, need admiration the way addicts need substances. They believe they are truly special and yet not appreciated for their gifts, which can lead them to act entitled, as if the rules do not apply to them. In their quest for recognition, they sometimes exploit others, contradict what they’ve said, and break their promises --  all the while arguing (and often truly believing) in their new, alternative facts. Once we know this, Trump’s tendency to revise history becomes unsurprising and explicable.

It’s a painful way to live, because no amount of adoration will ever be enough. After every victory, feelings of envy, anger, and frustration squirm back to the surface. Now, Behary says, Trump is “unraveling.” This, too, is predictable, which is why we need to talk about it, out in the open. As the bad news stacks up for Trump, including Republican losses in the midterms, a divided Congress, and continuing legal investigations, he is likely experiencing profound mental agony.

In this agitated state, narcissists are notoriously bad at negotiating, as it turns out. (They are good at bullying, which is not the same thing.) Catherine Conner, a family law attorney and mediator in Northern California, understands this better than political scientists, because she has helped hundreds of people craft child custody agreements and divorce settlements. A crisis, such as a divorce, may intensify narcissistic tendencies and make negotiation impossible, she says.

“The only way to create an agreement is to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and come up with a package that might appeal to both of you,” Conner says. “If they are incapable of seeing the world through anyone else’s eyes, they won’t be able to do this. They will just remain stuck on their vision of what should be, convinced that everyone will see it their way.”



This would explain why Trump was reportedly shocked that the Democrats did not agree to his border-wall terms. He was unable to see the situation from their point of view. When this kind of intransigence takes hold in Conner’s cases, the parties are sometimes forced to rely on judges to make the decision.

In Trump’s case, if he is unable to compromise before the government shuts down again in two weeks, the courts might have to get involved. Or Trump might just turn the government back on in order to be the hero. “Narcissists are so good at showing up as Messiahs,” Behary says. If he’s at risk of losing the support of his fan base, which he needs in order to stop the pain, he will swoop in to save the day. Because that’s what narcissists do.

Typically, when all else fails and narcissists are unable to get the attention and affirmation they need, they play the victim. If the investigations continue to intensify, and if Trump begins to lose the affection of his base, Fox News pundits, and Republican leaders, he may resign, Behary predicts, based on all the narcissists she has treated for decades. “He’ll point the finger and say, ‘I was making America great again, and the Democrats stopped me.’”

Trump may not behave this way. Human behavior is complicated. But isn’t it useful to know how other people like him tend to behave, generally speaking? So let’s stop living in the past, under the old rules of journalism and politics. Let’s start talking about mental health with the directness and care that our readers deserve. If journalists want to help the public understand the world in which we live, it is time to find new pundits--  the kind who have seen this all before, who can empathize with the president and his opponents, and who do not benefit from perpetuating the chaos.

And by the way, real presidents have real inaugurations with real entertainment and no one from the family or entourage pockets millions of dollars: