How Trump's Speech Reveals Signs of Dementia: Psychologist | The Daily Beast Podcast Livestream

Doctor John Gartner is in the house. What could be more exciting? First of all, sorry, we're a couple of minutes late. We had a very small technical hitch. I think at, and, but I think we all woke up to the news of the Truth. Social post that the president had, put out on Easter morning. I mean, I can't even begin to describe it, but yelling at the Iranians that they were crazy bastards and,

and I've never seen so much discussion on social media. and in person about the state of the president's mental health. Doctor Gartner, you are illustrious. You are a psychotherapist. You're a former professor at Johns Hopkins University. Tell us what you are seeing. in the way the president uses language. We just had a press conference today, and he appeared to fall asleep. standing up as his secretary of defense.

told everybody that everything was absolutely marvelous. And the real reason that we're winning the war is because of the brilliant, the brilliant. President Trump. You know, he's been talking a lot in history, social, getting more and more aggressive. And there seems to be a real disinhibition going on. Tell us what you're what you're going to sing. And also I just want to make sure people send us your questions.

Everybody's noticing different small things about the president. People are noticing how he's changing. He's he's constantly in the public eye. People are used to seeing friends and relations. declining, deteriorating. So feel free to, to ask your questions. And, Doctor John, I'm. now going to stop talking and let you tell us what you're observing. Right? So the tweet really shows the interaction of two disorders that he has.

One is his malignant narcissism, which has been his personality his whole life. And just to review for people, the malignant narcissistic diagnosis was introduced by Erich Frome. to explain the psychology of Hitler and other similar dictators. And it has four components narcissism, but also paranoia, antisocial personality disorder and sadism. So he's always posted really. hateful tweets that Donald Trump is.

Then you add the fact. that he has been showing signs of frontotemporal dementia since 2019. That's when I started publishing op eds about it. And the thing about dementia is it doesn't stay the same. It doesn't get better, it only gets worse, and the rate of deterioration accelerates. So I was predicting that about Trump, that not only was he going to get worse, but the rate of change was going to accelerate. And that's exactly what we're seeing.

So people that knew him in the first administration, you know, say he's not the same man he was four years ago. Now it's not the same man he was four weeks ago. The rate of deterioration is accelerating. And so how do we see that in the tweet? Well, one of the things about frontotemporal dementia. as opposed to Alzheimer's, and there's been some experts have really come to the conclusion. that he's more likely to have frontotemporal than Alzheimer's, even though Alzheimer's runs in his family. The problem with frontotemporal dementia is it's primarily a behavioral problem. It's not primarily a memory problem.

Has memory components. And we can talk about how we're seeing new evidence of his memory deteriorating. He's talking about Kellyanne Conway being his press secretary, that kind of thing. Doesn't recognize Hakeem Jeffries when he. When he negotiates with him. So he is having memory deficits. But what is most disturbing for the world. is that people with frontotemporal dementia lose all judgment, all inhibition, all ability to inhibit their behavior, and they become disinhibited and aggressive.

So the way I would describe Donald Trump right now is I would say he's a raging ID. with no frontal lobes and no guardrails, raging. So, in other words, his he he is filled with hate. The thing that people need to understand. about malignant narcissists is they get more pleasure from. this is the sadism from feeling powerful. by harming and destroying and degrading. other people and institutions, and in this case, countries.

And so my fear is that Donald Trump is getting off on this. He is getting sadistic pleasure. from scaring the world and blowing things up. It doesn't even make. And what we see in that tweet, just to get back to the tweet is the disinhibition. Right. So we always used to give horrible holiday tweets. So like on Christmas instead of, you know, goodwill to all men. and peace on earth he would say here similaires and losers, you know. And so he'd always he's always had horrible holiday tweets.

The difference is, what you see now is we saw this with the reporters, and he started becoming more coarse and more abrasive and more gross, in his aggression, the quiet piggy. So now, instead of just saying liars and losers, he's saying he's using the word fuck. He said, you better open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards. I'm just that level of cursing is so unpresidential. It's just showing how he's losing all the internal controls. And he's more like an out of control, mental patient.

Only here's somebody who has the nuclear button, obviously. Yeah, dear. Thanks for reminding us. There also, it feels like that that tweets with, you know, with the F-word and and calling the Iranians crazy bastards. It felt like a step change in his aggression in the tweet. And then I was thinking about the tweet or the truth social. We should say that. And of course, then gets picked up by the media because there's very little reaction on on.

Truth Social to it, because really, there aren't very many people on the platform. But again, aggression towards, of all people, the Supreme Court. justices, three of whom he appointed and it's largely a conservative body. I mean, six justices out of the nine are conservative. And last week he turned up at the Supreme Court, the first sitting president to turn up and listen to oral argument.

So again, and this sense of he was on the front row. of the public bench, glowering. at the nine justices as they made their, you know, as. they tested the oral argument of his solicitor general, John Sauer. And then he got up and he stormed out. And again, that felt like a step change in his favor. Right? Just the physical presence he was using. So we're seeing, like, a tantrum. Yeah.

Like a like a tantrum, but a tantrum that matters because he's the president. And, you know, we've all known that presidents have tantrums in private, but but it now feels like it's much more out in the open. So we've got Scotus we've got the attack on Iran. with the step change in the swearwords. So we've got we've got disinhibition, we've got aggression. What are the other symptoms of frontotemporal dementia that you talk. about? Well, it's the interaction that we really are worrying about, right.

Because we have someone who is fundamentally malevolent. His fundamental character structure is malignant. He is someone who would rather hurt people and feel powerful through hurting them, and gain pleasure from hurting people and feeling powerful from it. And others, remember, this guy's a rapist, you know, and rapist, right? Rape is about power and violence. It's not about sex. He's been accused of rape, and he's been found guilty of sexual assault.

I think we always have to be careful with the word rapist. We remember that George Stephanopoulos got in trouble for using that word. And obviously, the president denies it all. Nevertheless, he adjudicated sexual assault. Or though the judge has said in private comments that essentially he is a rapist. Okay. Let's just. Okay. But that's the one legal case. I you're not but you I know, but nevertheless, this is the issue of doing YouTube live, Doctor Gardner.

But I think that it just go on about this. I mean, can you just sort of address the issue of his aggression. and also the grandiosity that he's bringing to the role now, too? Well, that's the other thing is, you know, malignant narcissists have an almost psychotic level of grandiosity, and that's becoming more and more inflamed. You know, I mean, and he's trying to basically ride us. I don't know if you remember the old. Charlie Chaplin, movie, The Grand Dictator of the Great Dictator.

If people are going to correct me if I've got the title wrong, but you're going to correct because. Because Charlie was watching. Yes. In fact, Charlie Chaplin fans, please write in the official title. Okay, of his The Grand Deed of the Great Dictator, but he's got the entire globe. But it's like a balloon, and he's just casually tossing it. up in the air, you know, toying with it, playing with it as if, you know, it's just a game and then it pops at the end. He is he is getting.

I think this is important for people. Understand? I'm worried that he's going to become addicted or he is becoming. addicted to war because he gets off on it. Remember when he put up. that social media thing where they were splicing actual images. of the missiles, blowing stuff off with video games? Yeah, they were gamifying it. and kind of trivializing it and sort of having fun with it. They're still presenting him, you know, video of blowing stuff up every morning. They're not really giving him the true battle, you know, news.

Well and he's getting and I was going to say, and. he got a sort of taste of a quick victory with Venezuela. Right. And then there was sort of six weeks where I think that. the sort of high of that was trailing off. Yes. One sort of lifts. Oh that's right. That's a good way of putting it that he needs to keep getting that high, which means he needs to keep doing more military aggression. He was even saying that Cuba was next, you know, well, after.

we're done with Iran, you know, we're then I'm going to I'm going to take Cuba. So again, it's very personal, you know, just like you said yesterday, Greenland, because it had psychological meaning to him. Yeah. And that also that the only thing that he can that can stop him. When asked, in the interview he did with the New York Times, you know, who could stop you could, you know, can the law stop you? And he's like, well, my own morals will stop you. I don't need anybody to tell me anything. My own morality will stop me, right?

Or actually, his morality will not stop him. Is the problem. in this tweet that we've been discussing, he's threatening war crimes. He's not kidding. And he doesn't care if the world condemns him. In fact, it kind of gets he gets off on that. I think it's really important for people. to understand that we're dealing with someone who's not only evil, who's not only demented, but who is actually getting. I want to call this, this war masturbatory. because he is actually pleasuring himself and getting gratification.

and feeling powerful by, threatening the world, not just Iran. Right? And can we just talk about the level. of attention them because he's doing this in front of the world. There isn't any there isn't a single country who isn't impacted by this. That's right. Right. Especially with the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, through which, you know, 20% of the world's oil goes. So so it's as if he's I mean,

would it be I mean, he's just doing all this. in front of a global audience of 8 billion people. And that's incredibly intoxicating for him. To be. frightening millions of people is intoxicating to him. To show how powerful he is is intoxicating to him. To destroy things is intoxicating them for them. to be threatened, that he might go way too far and commit. some heinous act of violence and and the people are really worried.

Is the planet even going to be here tomorrow? Striking that terror and fear into. the hearts of the world is like the best thing that he could. That could happen to him from his point of view. That's like, it doesn't get any better than that. So part of the problem is we're not just dealing with someone who's demented, which is really fundamentally malevolent and demented. and who has absolute power of sorts, because he's the most powerful man. in the world. There's no guardrails within the government.

And who going to stop him? And he's enjoying himself. He's the. He's enjoying himself. He loves this. So let me ask you something else as well. In his speech to the nation from the white House last week. and again today from the white House, when he was standing on the balcony. with, of all things, the Easter Bunny, he kept playing. A year ago he had inherited. a dead and crippled country. He said it twice. I've inherited it,

and I've turned it into the hottest country, the hottest country. The word. hot feels very odd for a country. And I'm just wondering about his. The story to himself, that he inherited a debt and crippled country. and within a year has turned it into the hottest country. When you analyze that language, what what are you. what do you what are you seeing? Well, there's several things. First is the grandiosity, of course, that, you know, he's transformed America,

but the other is the projection and the malevolence. Because the truth is, we were the hottest country in the world for about five decades. And he has turned it into, a wreck, in one year. So it's literally the as often is the case with him, the truth is. literally the pure inverse of what he's saying. It wasn't broke. It was hot, and now he's broken it. So interesting. Do you think he has a.

I have a podcast going out later tonight with David Rothkopf, who was saying and who lives in, you know, lives. at the center of the epicenter of the intelligence community in DC. And he was just saying that, you know, everybody. assumes that Trump just lives with imposter syndrome. Is that something that's part of this, too? Well, you know, every narcissist has a kind of empty. inner core where there's a fear that they're going to collapse. And part of the reason they need to puff themselves up, right, is to defend against that feeling of inner emptiness and smallness.

And so Trump is no different than that. And so he keep but he keeps, achieving. this massive power that is then warding off that sense of failure. But here's the problem. You know, people are kind of taking some glee, and I understand that. And his poll numbers falling and, you know, in the, in the, in the economy not doing well and all these other things. But the point is, you don't want to corner a wounded animal.

because he has this way of making himself feel better. You know, if you're having a down day and you're feeling, you know, feeling down. about yourself, the best thing to do is bomb a country, right? If you throw a few bombs and you kill a few thousand people, you always feel better, don't you? I always do. Right. So? So in a sense, the more people remind him, his poll numbers are doing badly. The economy is not what it used to be.

That the Epstein files will not go away, that ice has been a disaster. And his organization has been shooting people in cold blood. in the middle of the street. in Minneapolis, that he's had to fire his attorney general, that he's had to fire the head of, Homeland Security. All these things make him even more vindictive. Exactly. It's pushing him towards more, aggressive military action.

Because no one can stop him, and it makes him feel good. on a day to day basis. And that's he's going on a day to day basis. Let's face it, this guy isn't playing three dimensional chess. He isn't playing checkers. He might be playing marbles. He might be. playing Marvel wise, but he's lost his. I mean, he had to borrow the president might be playing marbles, but he's lost his marbles, so he's playing with someone else. All right. So. So I just want to say that's why he didn't tell us if he was going to war,

why he was going to war when he was going to war, what the objectives of the war would be, how we would know when the war was over. He said that it'll be over when he wants it to be over. He said it'll be over when he feels it in his bones. In other words, it'll end when I just feel like I want to end it. It's all about him managing his own psychological state. And all of us are just toys. In this, this drama of Trump.

regulating his own emotional mood. And so because he is this raging ID with no frontal lobes. Aggressive action. Right. Aggressive action makes him feel good, and he doesn't have the judgment. Never mind the morals. Right. But he doesn't even have the judgment. to be able to weigh the consequences of these actions. But he feels impelled to do them by his aggressive impulses, and, yes, by the fact that he's being threatened from other corners. Well, it's so interesting.

There are so many people agreeing with you online, actually, and the angrier and. angrier and apocalyptic he will become is something that Allison Knox is saying. Someone else is saying marbles lol. Kingsley Pitt is saying that I in. I agree entirely with the good doctor. Ada Shaw is saying, so so we've got his language, we've got his endless press conferences, we've got the facts. He won't shut up talking. What about his physical, his physical appearance at work?

What can you see from just looking at him? Because again, and you have always made this point. when we've we've talked before in previous conversations that he, he's been. with us for the last 50 years, 40 years on television. So we've seen him. We can monitor his changes. What have you seen in his physical, in his physicality recently that concerns you? Well, we've seen a lot of things. I mean, he's clearly deteriorating.

And one of the symptoms of dementia is deterioration in the psychomotor area. He's had a long standing, kind of what we call a wide gait, wide based gait, where he sort of swings his right leg like it's kind of a dead weight. And that's one of the reasons when you show him on the red. carpet, speed it up, he kind of looks like Benny Hill, kind of zigzagging around. But, you know, the Benny Hill show, right? You get you just put that that music to the tape, all right.

Which would actually. But actually, if you slow it down, you see that he's swinging that right leg that seem to get a lot worse. In, I think it was around January when people thought he had a stroke. And he was showing other signs of a stroke in the right side of his face. Was was just drooping. And actually, there's only two things that can do that. One is Bell's palsy, but that's permanent. And the other is a mini stroke which, which can which can it can get better. But, he's also shown weakness in his right hand. He couldn't flip the coin at the football game.

His hold of holding his arm sometimes like it's a dead weight. So there's a lot. And. And he's falling asleep all the time. You know, he fell asleep right today. Yeah, yeah. Listening to Pete Hegseth, I would fall asleep listening. Beat. But talking about war, right? I mean, he also fell asleep in a cabinet meeting when they were talking about the war. I mean, could you imagine falling asleep when we're talking about war, that you're in charge of? It's like falling asleep at your criminal trial. It just doesn't happen. People are too tense, and and, you know, they're they're.

The adrenaline is pumping when you're in the dark. Not only do you fall asleep, you fall asleep. Most days. So we're seeing the deterioration of his thinking, of his verbal language, of his physical body, and and of his behavior. Those are the four main areas we look for in dementia. And we see dramatic reductions if we compare him to his own baseline, as you say, looking at films of him in the 80s, he was articulate. He was, actually coordinated.

And now you really. see a dramatic, decline from his own baseline. Okay. So I want to come back to his physical symptoms in a minute, but. because you and I have spent some time discussing his mental health, I was really paying attention during the state of the Union. He talked for an hour and 45 minutes or an hour and 47 minutes. He seemed to listen to the room. He appeared to go off script and make jokes. And I came away thinking, oh, he he's actually fine.

And so is it possible that you can rally all the drugs? He might be taking that focus him, as you can do. with certain, you know, certain illnesses. And I'm not suggesting he's taking drugs for things, but I was very struck. that that felt like an hour and 47 of of peak Trump, if you like, performing in front of a big audience, being able to extemporaneous being funny in the moment.

Can you all can you be like that? And also be veering on the edge of the beginnings of dementia? Well, you know, anyone who's had a relative. who's had dementia knows they have good days and bad days. They have good hours and bad hours. That's what the whole Sunday downing thing is about. And also I think, I think it's been pretty well established. by now that he has abused Adderall, at least at some points in his life. There are witnesses that say that, and it does appear. I mean, there's even been like, you know, people who do.

Close-Up cameras and show little white flakes under his nose. Sometimes when he gives these major addresses, I think he does take some stimulants before these major addresses. And probably good idea, actually, to focus him. And I think he's probably denied, but I'm pretty confident. that the white House has denied any relations of him doing that. Just to be clear. Yes, yes. No, absolutely. We want to get their their dishonest denials on the record. Well, well it please keep going.

But but so. the point is that you can actually, as you say, have good days and bad days. You can have days. when things appear to be falling apart, when you're clutching your wife's hand. because you're not sure you're going to make it down the steps of Air Force One. And then there are days when you can appear to enchant. an entire House of Congress by talking for an hour and 47 minutes. Sure, sure. Well, I mean, we know that there is that variability in people's functioning. So we really can't judge him on his best days.

We really have to judge when he is really showing his symptomatology. You know, I do have one. I know one of our traditions has been that. I read, like a couple of paragraphs long verbatim of him. And one of the things I'm hoping you're going to. Yeah. And one of the reasons I do that is because the press has really been. failing us in terms of showing his level of cognitive decline. One reason there's one way they're failing us is there's just this gag order. They just can't talk about it. And so they're kind of saying.

washing or normalizing what is obviously severely disturbed behavior. But the other reason is they show us little snippets, right? They don't show us the whole, meandering, tangential, nonsensical, speeches that he makes. But what, what he's showing here in this piece that I'm going to show you is I'm. Doctor John. I'm just going to defend the media there, actually, because for the most part, they do show his press conferences where he goes off. And I think what often they're trying to do is let him speak for himself.

and assume that people are watching this and seeing what. what you're seeing, which is a president who frequently goes off the reservation. in terms of of what he's talking about, says things that other presidents wouldn't say. But I know you're going to talk about confabulation, and I know you're going to talk about emails. So please continue. I didn't mean well, but no, but but what you're saying, you know, I think it's interesting, a poll came out this week that 57% of the voters.

don't think he is mentally competent to be president, and something like more than 60% think he's become more erratic with age. And what's interesting about that is I do think that the press has been failing us. in terms of not reporting on this story, but because it we all have eyes, okay? We can see with our own eyes how much he is flailing cognitively. so that the majority of Americans now, even though nobody is actually. reporting on it, can see it with their own eyes, form their own judgments.

And I obviously you don't have. to be a psychologist to see that this man is disturbed and demented. It just you need to observe him with common sense. So that's what the majority of Americans have already done. They've already formed their judgment without the having the doctors, to inform them, because we're under a gag order and the press is under a gag order. But, yes, I want to know about confabulation. And what I want to say about the story is I'm going to read it. You're going to see how confused it is. But the important thing for people to know is none of this is true.

None of this story did not happen. There is. I'm going to read about. He spoke for five minutes. He broke off in a press camera for five minutes to talk about a Sharpie pen. Okay, so people keep saying, well, how do you know he's really confabulation? How do you know he's not just a liar? Well, of course he is a liar. And I always say his psychopathy is the best, camouflage for his dementia because he starts telling crazy lies. Oh, there he goes. Just lying again. The difference is with confabulation is they call it honest lying.

You don't know that you're lying. You're you're misremembering something that didn't happen. For example, remember when he talked about his. having a long conversation. with the uncle about the Unabomber, who was in his class? And, you know, he was really a smart guy, but no one liked him. because he kind of had an attitude of me, a long story. Well, that never happened. We know the Unabomber didn't go to MIT. And his father, his uncle, died before we found out who the Unabomber was. That's just an example. So I just want to point out there is no thousand dollar Sharpie. There is no gold Sharpie.

And he's never spoken to anyone at the Sharpie company. This has been established. Okay, so with that in mind, let me read to you a little bit about the Sharpie pen. See this pen right here? Yeah, this pen is an interesting example. This pen is the same thing. So this pen is very inexpensive. But it writes well I like it, but I can't have this pen the way it is. I don't want to give too much publicity, but they do treat me well. Sharpie. So I came here. They have these thousand dollar pens and you know, you.

hand pens out and you're signing and you hand them out. You're handing them out to a lot of people. All these people, sometimes you have 30 or 40 people. And there were a thousand and they were $1,000 apiece. Ballpoint pens, gold, silver. Gorgeous. But I'm handing it out to kids that don't even know what it is. What is this? What is this? Mommy? It's kids. They're getting a pen for $1,000. They have no idea what it is. And I'm. I'm feeling guilty because, you know, by nature, you know, it's the government.

I love the government. Like, I love myself economically. I want to save money. So I'm saying this is crazy. And and I had another problem. It didn't write well. So I take it out and sign and there's no ink. I got you all these people looking saying there must be something wrong with Trump. because I'm signing it. There's no ink in the pen and it costs $1,000. That's when I called the guy at Sharpie and I said, I want to use you, but I can't. I have a big gray thing on it that's a Sharpie. As I'm signing $1 trillion. airplane contract to buy brand new jet fighters, new B-2 bombers.

We just ordered planning, but I can't do that with the press. But I like your pen. The best. But I'll sign it. I could be like Biden did. Give it to someone else to sign or auto pen. Maybe sign it in a separate room. But I can't use your pen. So the guy at Sharpie said, well, we could make it nice. Well, what could you do? I asked. Well, he said we could paint it black. Oh that's nice. And he said he could paint it with the white House on it. If you like it in gold. Almost real gold. Not bad.

And I could even do your signature, sir. And by the way, this was not staged. I just saw the pen. First of all, I'd. like to commend you on the cadence of the of your reading. That would sound like Donald Trump. And it's all it's just untrue. It's like a stream of consciousness coming from it's wishful. thinking about the pen. And what he seems to be saying is, I wish Sharpie would give me. hundreds of pens that's worth $1,000 each, and they should have some gold on them.

And my signature with it should be signed in gold. I'm amazed he doesn't, doesn't have gold ink actually in sign. Everything in gold. Not like the, you know, like the French emperors. So so what does this tell us about him? What? What is going on internally that he does this when most people wouldn't write? Well, this is an example of. what happens when your frontal lobes deteriorate. This is an example of organic brain deterioration.

People don't confabulation unless they have, dementia. or some equally serious organic, neurological decline. It's not something you do. when you're drunk or tired or old or you know what I mean? It's a completely. And if anyone has ever had a relative who has dementia, you're probably familiar. with this. You've probably been on the other end of it. Hearing about some long, elaborate story of something that you know, couldn't. have possibly happened or didn't happen. And you. if you try to contradict the person, of course they're going to get upset.

And so, you know, you might go along with it. The problem is we have someone in the Oval Office who's confabulation. Right. And other presidents know it, don't I? I mean, that's the other thing that other presidents and prime ministers, you see them sort of trying to figure out how to handle him. So another thing that's interesting is that he is surrounded. by loyalists and by sycophants. And it was amazing listening to the press conference today where Pete Hegseth.

is, is just sort of prostrating himself in front of, in front of President Trump, just saying none of this would be possible. without the good president. He's an incredible president. Decisive blunder. And Trump himself is always going on about how he's the only president. that makes this decision. And five previous 30 that wouldn't go into Iran. So what what do we make of the fact.

that if you're suffering from the condition, you say he is, that. he is surrounded by people that just tell him he's wonderful? Well, it's really the worst possible scenario, right? I mean, he's the kind of patient that would be like, problematic to manage, you know, at the nursing home. But he's not in charge of the nursing home, right? Right there he is in the nursing home as well. That's a brilliant sorry. Carry on. Carry on. Well. And so look, he learned in his first term, right.

That the problem with appointing people who have any competence or experience. is that they have the they have the possibility of contradicting him. Right. Even if they're loyalists. Right. If they know anything about their department, then they know, look, this isn't true. This isn't how we do things here. This goes against the rules. This goes against the science, what have you. And so the most important qualification. to be in the Trump cabinet is that you are not qualified.

Yes. Oh it's important. It's actually really them. It's the it's the it is the number one qualification. because anyone who had any competence or experience in their area. would be feel and would feel absolutely like they had to say, I'm just sorry, Mr. President, but you know, that's not how it works or we don't commit war crimes. You don't do that here. You know, in fact, what we know about the process. in terms of the lead up to the Iran war, is everyone up. the chain of command in the military and the intelligence services?

They all said the same thing. If you do this, it's going to be a disaster. They're going to close the Straits of Hormuz, which you could probably tell just by looking at a map. Okay. But you know who who's who said, no, that's not going to happen. Oh, Pete Hegseth, who knows nothing about the military. I mean, he was like in the reserves for a little while. But basically, this is a guy who is allegedly an alcoholic newscaster, you know, Christian tattoos all over his body, right? He did he did serve in Iraq.

And I think he. he reached the stage of, of major. So he has actually served in action is all I would say. I'm not someone who. who wants to defend him, but at least he's he's actually served. But, but as you say, he came back. He was, you know, familiar with a bottle of champagne, let's put it that way. I mean, a legendary drunk, Roger Ailes used to talk about him. being drunk on air at Fox News, apparently, according to Michael Wolf.

So if you're Donald Trump and you're suffering from, frontal lobe dementia. and you are surrounded by sycophants, does this make you just worse? Well, it means that. just when we need the guardrails the most, they're not there. You know, I mean, if you're demented relative. or running into the street, right? Someone has to go after him. But now what we have is there's nobody. to contradict him, no one to contain him, no one to redirect him.

Right. Instead, they're amplifying and and enabling. his irrational, insane, demented, impulses. And they're just kind of going with it. It's like improv, you know? Whatever he does, it doesn't even have to be consistent with what he said he was going to do, or what he believes or what they believe. They just go with it. You know, an improv. The rule is, whatever the other person does, you just accept it and start.

You start acting in the scenario. So if they say, I'm in a pet shop, you act like you're in a pet shop, okay? You just go with it. Yeah, I think basically everyone in the white House is doing improv. They're just basically saying yes to whatever happens. to flick across Trump's demented brain at that moment in time. So, Doctor John, several people have asked, well, they've said yes, they agree with you. And, how do we handle this? How do we do that?

When you just said now and you paused and there was this kind of terrifying. silence, which is there is no guardrail, there is no one to contain him. How should, how should people around him think about this? You know, I think that this question. has come up a lot, and I wish I had a better answer. I don't see anything. that can or will stop him. other than the hamburgers.

You know, basically, he's in poor health. None of us escaped mortality. I think that's the only thing that can stop him, because at this point, we are careening towards the apocalypse. I actually checked the doomsday Clock. It's allegedly at 75 minutes. I think it's running a little slow. I think. it feels like we're. closer to, You know, it's striking 11. And the other thing that one notices new. And I've talked about this before, but there's no there's no wife there.

So he doesn't appear to have anybody to sort of soothe him. at the end of the day, his daughter that we know, he did have a close relationship with Ivanka Trump. during the first administration, has very deliberately stayed away. She said, no, politics is a cruel business. I'm not getting into it. So and his sons are busy making as much money as they possibly can, so it doesn't appear that he has anybody close to him. to either,

help him process the day and his anxieties. I mean, he seems incredibly isolated, and it's such a cliche to reach for, King Lear as as a as a parallel here. But King Lear feels about as most apt as one can think of a. an old man raging into the dying of the light. Except King Lear gave up power. He wasn't prosecuting war.

Well, that's true, but, But is there no solution to this? Then? This is the thing. This is the nightmare that keeps me up at night. The short answer is no. The short answer is no. What if we win the midterms in 2026? Okay, so let's say through a miracle, we're able to have a free and fair election. And the blue wave is able to be so powerful that they have to give,

let's say, both houses of Congress to the Democrats. Is that going to stop Trump from using his power. as commander in chief to make himself feel better by blowing other countries up? They hope they have no power to stop him from doing that. They can impeach him. They can censure him. They can try to pass some sort of antiwar resolution. The commander in chief has command of the military. And so what I'm seeing is actually the hope.

the people are putting into the midterms, and I'm putting hope into them, too. I'm not saying I won't, but I don't see it as a solution. to this careening us, careening towards World War three. So this isn't going to get better. He's only going to get more grandiose. More aggressive. Yes. More disinhibited. Yes. That's right. And possibly more violent in terms of using the military against.

Absolutely. Other countries. Okay. No. Deary me. I'm looking at the comments pouring in and people say, Emma Bovary here, 9374. Why can't the Americans remove him from office? Someone else. Claire. 730 saying the midterms are too far away, Allison mocks. I'm genuinely concerned that Hegseth will talk Trump into some nuclear option. A lot of people saying, I have to agree with Doctor Gardner.

Ada Shaw, just saying thank you to the good doctor. for articulating it better than I can. It's alarming. It's alarming. And as someone's quote here, Miss Mojo Rising, I am a man more sinned against than sinning. Which, of course, is from King Lear and couldn't feel more apt, actually, for how Trump presents himself as someone who is more sinned than, you. know, more sinned against than sinning and and feeling sorry for himself.

You know, he's always talking about how he's the only one that can do this. Nobody else can do it. The other five presidents, they were stupid. They didn't do this. I'm the only one. Well, Doctor Gardner is always excellent to to speak to you. And I love how you articulate and how you see beyond what we just see. And you can. you can apply your medical knowledge to it and your great experience to it. And this isn't the first time you've seen it.

No. And I want to say that, you know, people are starting to come around. I want to give some credit to Doctor Van Gupta, who a lot of people, know. He recently posted a tweet saying erratic, can't finish sentences, often confused, illogical train of thought, word finding, difficulties developing and worsening over time. The president is exhibiting all the signs of dementia. Now, this is Doctor Van Gupta. He's not a hysteric. He's not a snowflake. He's not a partizan.

You know, people have criticized me. Oh, he's a Democrat. He's Partizan. He's violating the ethics because he's, giving a diagnosis. Doctor fame. Gupta is about as conservative in mainstream as you could get, right? And he's got a much bigger presence and much more, credibility. in some ways, with the nation than I do. He's saying it, you know, and amazingly, I mean, Doctor Van Gupta is saying it and, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying it, one of my biggest fans.

And yesterday she tweeted out after seeing the President's Truth Social. Well, in fact, I'm going to read out what she said because it's sort of there's a sharp. intake of breath at the idea of Marjorie tweet putting this out. But, you know, she said on Easter morning, this is what the president this is what President Trump posted. And she, you know, repeated his tweet. And then she says, and I'm very interested to get your feedback on this.

Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian. needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop. worshiping the president and intervene in Trump's madness. I know all of you and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit. And then she says, I'm not defending Iran, but let's be honest about all of this. The street is closed. because the US and Israel started the unprovoked war against Iran. based on the same nuclear lies they've been telling for decades.

Thoughts? Well, you know, we're in, rough shape. when Marjorie Taylor Greene is the truth teller. Alex Jones has also been posting similar, things. So, yeah, a lot of the people are peeling away from him. And of course, that's happening at a massive level. If you look at the poll numbers, it doesn't matter. At some level, he still has this power.

He's still going to use it to make himself feel better. And actually, the worse, the more he feels cornered again, the more he feels dissed, the more he feels, you know, criticized, attacked, devalued, betrayed. Right. The more he is going to want to really blow. things up and show everybody who's boss. Well, this is really alarming. I'm going to read you one more comment. Shift framing from escalation ladder to active nuclear strategy. Stop treating nukes as a distant last resort.

They are already on the table with conditions being shaped around them. And that's from Rebecca Caramello. Well, you know, let's say in his first term, why do we have nuclear weapons if we can't use them? So he, you know, he he's a very loose finger on the nuclear button. I don't know if people remember the the Daisy ad. I'm old enough to remember the daisy had the most. A famous political commercial in American history. The daisy ad was during the election. of the contest between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater.

Lyndon Johnson put up this ad where, I don't know if you remember, like when you were a kid, you'd pulled the petals off a daisy. Go. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. He loves me. He loves me. No, he loves me. He loves me. And you have this little, beautiful blond, like six year old girl pulling the things off the daisy going. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. And then you see a mushroom cloud and it goes, Goldwater. We can't take a chance. And that was how Johnson actually won reelection. was by portraying Goldwater as this madman.

The problem is, is that it wasn't true about Goldwater. And actually, he sued over that. And he won, not about the ad, but about the, article that was, quoting therapist saying that he was unstable. That's how we got the Goldwater rule. Henry Kissinger. had this idea that he called the madman theory. that, it's actually an advantage for a head of state. If his enemies think he's a madman and he'll do anything, he's crazy. He'll do anything. You're more likely to make concessions to a leader like that.

What people don't realize, I think they should. It's very important. they understand that Donald Trump had won the negotiations with Iran. We have, heard from, British security Officer. Jonathan Powell, who was part of these negotiations, that Iran had agreed to stop enriching uranium for 3 to 5 years. to degrade whatever uranium they have and to stop stockpiling. And they made none of these offers to Barack Obama. He could have said, hey, art of the deal. I'm the art of the deal guy.

Look, I got them to make concessions that back Obama couldn't get them to make. So I'm the big kahuna. He could have had such an easy win, but yet he chose not to take it. What does that telling us? What that's telling us is that he actually prefers. chaos and destruction to, winning or solutions. He's that sick. He's that disturbed. He's that malevolent. He's that evil. He's that crazy, okay?

That he wouldn't take yes for an answer. He'd rather plunge the world into World war, then win the negotiation. What is that telling us about this person and where he's going to take us next? Well, the Lincoln Project is. Or actually, Cindy Brown is saying the Lincoln Project should redo that. Daisy commercial, which is actually, I think, a very smart idea. And you're right, he he clearly loves the chaos. Actually, I will say that on a live, I'm not the best person. going up and down the comments, but there's some really good comments.

coming in now. Someone actually querying you on and actually, I thought this. when you said that is Bell's Palsy permanent? Can't you recover from Bell's? I don't know if they might have some more recent treatments. that it's not my, my area, but the but what we learn in school is that it's not, going to my aunt that she's had it since she was a child, you know, so it it so I'm sorry you cut off then, and I didn't hear you.

It is permanent or it's not permanent or it is permanent. I'm not saying that there aren't. some miracle recovery or that we might not be on the edge of some discoveries, but the general thing about Bell's palsy is it's not transient. I just want to say one other thing. It's a little bit tongue in cheek, but I, you know, I sometimes say that Trump is. maybe the one to convert me to Christianity. because he may have convinced me he's the Antichrist. All right. So we're going to end on a note of humor because we all need humor.

We need humor. But your analysis is always, incredibly articulate, I find. And I know that you're. spending all your time writing your new book and seeing patients. So we're very grateful. that you took time out of your Monday afternoon to talk to us. But I think a lot of people are asking, is the is the president in his right mind? And I think you've just indicated that he is not. So doctor Gartner, we will be watching his deterioration.

as you as you say it with great interest. And please come back and let's do another of these live sessions. in a couple of weeks. I'd be happy to. All right, Doctor Gartner, many, many thanks and thanks to everybody. for your questions. I'm sorry. I'm not terribly good at reading out all the comments. It's quite difficult when they're coming in to furious. Look, but we really appreciate them. And they stay up and. Well, happy Monday. The week has only just begun.

You know, happy and happy Monday. And don't forget to subscribe to The Daily Beast. We're independent media, which is why, precisely why. we can have conversations like this with Austria. Doctor Gartner, thank you very much. And everybody go back to your offices. If you're in your office, go back to your desk and we will see you soon. And tonight, we have David Rothkopf on the podcast. talking about what people are saying in the intelligence services. and what he's hearing out of the Pentagon about Pete Hegseth.

Goodbye.