Tony Schwartz has a new book out, “The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump,” which is a compilation of 27 essays by prominent psychiatrists examining the fundamental issue of the sitting POTUS having an obvious and severe personality disorder, for the first time in history. The taped interview is worth glancing at the first minute of because as Schwartz talks about the “absolute insensitivity and lack of empathy” of Trump, the now-famous footage of Trump launching paper towels into the crowd of natural disaster victims plays on the screen and if you haven’t seen that debacle, it is memorable. In itself, it is nothing short of the perfect commentary and encapsulation of the ineptitude and sheer tone deaf incompetence of this administration.
Schwartz continues, “When Donald Trump looks out into the world, what he sees is a reflection of himself, and that self he sees is a black hole that is leaking and it’s leaking self-esteem at a very rapid rate. He needs to keep filling it up. The ability to see other people is almost nonexistent.”
[...] “He was being criticized by the Mayor of San Juan and so it was a question of do I dominate or submit, win or lose? It’s a win/lose game there. As soon as he can be in a position of total and complete authority then he can put on a show. That empathy is not empathy he’s feeling from inside. He’s an actor in that role. In certain situations when he’s not under threat, he can be an actor.”
Then Schwartz gives some historical perspective. “To survive, Trump felt compelled to go to war with the world. It was a binary zero sum choice for him. You either dominated or you submitted. You either created and exploited fear or you succumbed to it.
“A person was either serving his interests or was an enemy. There was never anything in between and often that same person who was an ally could become an enemy in a moment. He will say wonderful things about a person whom he then excoriates in the next moment.
“He himself says that he’s the same person today at 70 that he was at 7 and I believe that. His world view has not changed. You develop things like empathy and a conscience and sensitivity and self awareness long past the age of 7. So if your development is arrested at age 7 you’re not going to have those qualities. [...]
“In the hundreds of meetings and dozens of phone calls I listened in on, with his consent, I can never remember anybody disagreeing with him — about anything. The same climate of fear and paranoia appears to have taken root in his White House.
...”You can see with Tillerson, that what’s going on behind the scenes is a lot of anger and teeth grinding and frustration but it’s very seductive to be in that role, to be in any of these roles in the cabinet, close to the president and so it’s a trade that they’re all making every day. Every rational person who is around Trump knows who he is in a moment. The outer Trump is no different from the inner Trump. What we see is what they get times ten.”
“He is not fit to lead and that’s what I want to be clear and what I don’t want to allow to be normalized.”