Live with Jim Acosta

[Transcript edited for clarity, length and flow]

I just had a great conversation with the wonderful Jim Acosta about Donald’s state of mind—whether we should truly be worried that he might do the unthinkable, the roles the Republican Party, his inner circle, and his cabinet are playing and what’s going on with his family. It was a fascinating discussion, and I hope you get as much out of it as I did.

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Jim Acosta: Welcome to the Jim Acosta Show. It’s another day that ends in “why” amid the chaos unleashed by Donald Trump in the Middle East. Today, Trump is threatening to wipe out Iran’s civilization if they don’t surrender to his demands. The Iranians appear to be calling his bluff. In the meantime, Trump has set an 8:00 PM deadline for tonight to get what he wants, but his threat to wipe out the Iranians has resurrected talk of removing Trump from office. Let’s discuss this with the wonderful Mary Trump, who is his niece and has repeatedly warned the public about her uncle’s lack of fitness for office, to put it mildly. Mary, great to see you again.

Mary Trump: It’s great to see you too, Jim. I’m sorry the circumstances are so dire.

Jim Acosta: I know, I know. And when I reached out to you yesterday, I had no idea that today he would threaten to wipe out Iran’s civilization—but here we are. I mean, he says a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. “I don’t want that to happen. However, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionary, wonderful can come out of this.” I don’t know what he’s saying here. It’s sort of all over the place—gobbledygook. When you saw this, what was your reaction?

Mary Trump: I think I was a little surprised that it’s taken him so long to get here. He has been looking for an excuse to bring us to the brink. And none of us has any right anymore to be surprised by anything Donald Trump says or might do.

One of the things that’s so deeply troubling—and I know you know this—is that we actually don’t know. We cannot say with any certainty what will happen at eight o’clock tonight. And he likes it that way. But we also have to focus on the fact that he can’t do this alone. The silence of the Republicans is deafening, and they’re all complicit in this.

And if Donald does indeed give the order to destroy a civilization—which is genocide, a crime against humanity—that’s an illegal order that cannot be followed. So again, he’s been giving orders to murder people in the Caribbean Sea that keep getting followed.

So it’s a very scary place to be.

Jim Acosta: No question about it. And you make a very good point. I mean, Mark Kelly and others have said, “Don’t follow illegal orders.” They’ve communicated that message to members of the military. But as you mentioned, these illegal orders have been followed.

But the question in my mind is—and you just sort of answered it when you said we don’t know what he’s going to do—I tend to think that he is bluffing, that this is a “taco” situation where at 7:59 this evening he’ll say, “The talks continue,” or something along those lines. And I think you and I have talked about this—it’s probably a coping mechanism on my part. I don’t want to imagine the worst. And I think it’s very possible he will do this.

Mary Trump: Yes. Now, to your point—and it’s a good one—that doesn’t mean he’ll do it tonight. There is an ego-saving mechanism at work here. He’s getting all sorts of attention. He is, to certain people, coming across as a tough guy. He’s saber-rattling, and he feels like a big man who is in control of everything.

And of course, much of this is also to keep attention focused away from other things that have been plaguing his second term—the Epstein files, the horrific mistakes he’s made vis-à-vis the economy, and on and on. We could talk for an hour about all the terrible things he’s done since January 2025.

But part of this is also that he’s continuing to sustain very severe narcissistic injuries. He knows on some level that he is not in control of anything, including the way he’s presenting himself to the public or being perceived. He’s losing his ability to control his impulses. We know that he’s in some cognitive decline. He can’t stay awake during the day.

A lot of this is to make him feel that he isn’t losing control. There will come a point, however, when that becomes inescapable. I don’t think we’re at that point yet, but if he doesn’t destroy an entire civilization tonight, that doesn’t mean we’re out of danger—because he’s not out of danger.

Jim Acosta: Right. He is the danger. And it seems to me—I saw Marjorie Taylor Greene was putting it out there, the 25th Amendment. Anthony Scaramucci was saying he should be removed from office. There are folks on the Republican side saying, “Enough is enough, he’s got to go,” based on that Truth Social post.

I guess I’m curious what you think. To me, he is the poster child for the 25th Amendment. He is not fit to serve right now. What are your thoughts?

Mary Trump: I think it’s really important to say that he’s never been fit—ever. He was never qualified. He never had the temperament. He never had the knowledge. He is a deeply compromised human being, and he always has been. But obviously, he’s much less fit than he was ten years ago.

Of course, he needs to be removed from office, but the problem with the 25th Amendment is that the people who have the power to do that aren’t going to. Sure, there are some Republicans calling for his removal, but they’re not in office. They don’t have the power to do anything.

Donald has successfully surrounded himself with the most corrupt, sycophantic cabinet and inner circle of any president. And the Republican Party—Republicans in Congress—are entirely complicit in all of this. And of course, we see that as incompetent as Pete Hegseth is, he’s done a pretty good job of hollowing out the upper echelons of the military.

So who in the Trump regime is going to remove him? Nobody.

Jim Acosta: Yeah. And the Republicans control Congress, so they’re not going to impeach and remove him. But it seems to me that if he unleashes something tonight that is akin to trying to wipe out a civilization, at that point there’s more than our democracy on the line—it’s our souls. And maybe there are Republicans in Congress who don’t care about that, but I think they should at this point, given what we’re dealing with.

And the other thing that is part of this, Mary, is how easily it seems Donald Trump is being led around by other people in his orbit. There’s a story in The New York Times today that Maggie Haberman wrote with Jonathan Swan about how Benjamin Netanyahu came to the White House, delivered a presentation, and they went around the room discussing it. The CIA director, John Ratcliffe, said talk of regime change was farcical. There was pushback. But in the end, Trump thought, “This is what he wants to do, so I’ll do it.” He’s going with his gut.

But as you said—what gut? He should never have been president. But that’s what we’re up against. He’s not only compromised cognitively, but he seems easily led by people around him.

Mary Trump: Yes. I think that has always been true to some degree. He either knows what he wants and seeks out the person who agrees with him, or he is influenced by whoever is reinforcing his impulses. And right now, that’s everybody.

In this instance, according to that article, it was Pete Hegseth who was completely on board—another deeply compromised person who has no business being anywhere near the U.S. military.

What really stood out to me was the idea that people in the administration view him as a man of history who sees things they don’t. If that’s true, we are in even bigger trouble, because no rational person could think that Donald is anything other than an ill-informed person who is only out for himself.

And failing to understand that is a large part of how we got here. I don’t like quoting myself, but in 2020 I said that if Donald thinks he’s going down, he’s going to take all of us with him. And here we are—and he’s going down.

Jim Acosta: Yeah, I agree. And it seems like he understands, on some level, how in over his head he is, which is why he’s lashing out. It’s almost childlike behavior. And I wonder if you could shed some light on that, because it’s gotten worse. We see it every day now—outbursts, profanity, threats.

Mary Trump: Yes. Part of that is the lack of impulse control that comes with whatever cognitive decline he’s experiencing. But we also need to remember that he has had serious, untreated psychiatric issues for decades. Those worsen over time, especially alongside physical decline.

There was a time when that behavior was strategic—a kind of “deal by tantrum” approach. But what’s new is that he is no longer in control of it. This is not a tactic anymore. It’s a reaction to a crisis of his own making.

He doesn’t know what to do. He isn’t a strategic thinker. He just keeps making things worse.

And we also need to remember that he has essentially been institutionalized his entire adult life—first by wealth, then by the presidency. He’s never had to function like a normal adult, and that has had consequences.

Jim Acosta: Yes, absolutely. And his physical decline is visible. The way he walks, the bruising, the fatigue—this is not the same person from 2016.

Mary Trump: No, it’s not.

Jim Acosta: And it seems to be accelerating.

Mary Trump: It is. But what’s important is that it’s not changing him—it’s revealing him. People once mistook his energy and aggression for strength. That illusion is gone.

Jim Acosta: And he no longer has guardrails. No John Kelly, no James Mattis. Now it’s Pete Hegseth. There’s nobody to stop him.

Mary Trump: Exactly. There are no guardrails. And there’s no one willing to step in. The complicity is total.

Jim Acosta: It really does reveal how vulnerable the system is.

Mary Trump: Yes. But if we survive this, at least we will know exactly what needs to be fixed. We need to codify everything. No more relying on norms.

Jim Acosta: And Supreme Court reform.

Mary Trump: Absolutely. He has been placed above the law. And that must be addressed.

Jim Acosta: And finally, the family—no one is stepping in.

Mary Trump: Because they’re benefiting. These relationships are transactional. They won’t intervene because they profit from his behavior.

Jim Acosta: In any other family, they’d take away the keys.

Mary Trump: Exactly.

Jim Acosta: Mary, always great to talk to you.

Mary Trump: Thanks, Jim. I appreciate it.

Jim Acosta: Thanks so much. Very interesting insights there from Mary, especially on the family. I hadn’t really thought about that until the end of the interview. In any other situation, the kids would step in—but they’re not, because they’re cashing in.