[Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]
[Transcript edited for clarity, length and flow]
I’m Mary Trump, clinical psychologist and Donald’s niece, which means I’ve spent a considerable amount of time watching my uncle reveal the contours of his psychological deterioration in real time. What he did at the United Nations General Assembly in late September was something different, though. It wasn’t just the usual cascade of lies and misstatements we’ve come to expect from him. It was a moment in which he stood before the representatives of nearly every nation on Earth and demonstrated, without filter, without coherence, without a single moment of self-awareness, just how profoundly unfit he is for the office he holds.
At the beginning of his remarks, Donald addressed what he framed as his biggest decision yet. This is what Donald said:
But I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election.
Let me be clear about what we are looking at here. The President of the United States, on the world stage, is presenting two options regarding a nation of nearly 90 million people: either allow them to thrive or obliterate them entirely. He frames this as his personal decision, as though the fate of Iran, the stability of the Middle East, the safety of Americans abroad, and the implications for global security all rest on his shoulders alone. And then, in a move that should terrify everyone who understands how foreign policy actually works, he undermines whatever leverage the United States might have by admitting that he’s planning to make a deal right after the election.
This is not governance. This is not leadership. This is a deeply disturbed individual revealing his complete detachment from reality and from responsibility.
Later in his speech, Donald explained his thinking on Iran further.
I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election because it doesn’t make sense for them not to. They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don’t realize is that I’m not running. I did that already and won in a landslide. We won in a giant landslide and I’ll be here for two and a half years. The Republican Party is running and I’m helping them, but I am not running. I gave absolutely no credence and I will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran. It doesn’t even enter my mind. The only thing that does is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.
The speech that followed was, in many respects, a window into the architecture of Donald’s mind. When he discussed what he characterizes as his great achievements, something becomes very clear: he cannot distinguish between fantasy and fact. Donald spoke extensively about settling wars and then pivoted to what he claimed were his greatest accomplishments.
Donald: Since I took office, it has been my great honor to settle eight wars and in doing so become friendly with the leaders of many of those countries. It was a great honor to do it. Numerous of these wars have gone on for many years and even decades. The reason I was able to make these settlements was the use of my relationships. Very special relationships to this day. Very, very special. The use of terrorists and the threat of terrorists and various other reasons depending on the country.
The prime minister of Pakistan, terrific man, said that Donald Trump was responsible for saving 30 million lives and probably many more than that. The president of Azerbaijan said Donald in six months did a miracle. It was an absolute miracle that nobody thought could be done. The prime minister of Armenia said, “This breakthrough would simply not have been possible without Donald’s personal engagement and his resolute commitment to peace.”
A lot has happened since we last gathered here one year ago. In January, at my direction, the United States military conducted a massive military operation penetrating deep into the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, descended on a heavily defended and fortified military base, one that was supposed to be flawless against attack and arrested the outlaw dictator, real criminal Nicholas Maduro. Since that day, hundreds of Venezuelan political prisoners have been freed. They’ve let them out of jails and we’re working closely with the leaders of Venezuela to forge a much better future for the Venezuelan people.
There was no such operation. Nicholas Maduro remains in power in Venezuela. None of this happened. Yet Donald stood before the United Nations and presented this fiction as though it were established fact. What is remarkable, and deeply disturbing, is the ease with which these fabrications roll off his tongue. There is no hesitation, no moment of doubt, no acknowledgment that perhaps he is conflating something he imagined with something that actually occurred. This is not a man who is deliberately lying. This is a man whose grip on reality has become so tenuous that he genuinely cannot distinguish between what he has accomplished and what he fantasizes about accomplishing.
He went on to describe what he claimed was the largest oil deal in history. This is what Donald said:
Last month, we signed the largest oil deal in history covering 65 billion barrels of oil, which will benefit both Venezuela and the United States enormously and help drive down the cost of energy all over the world. And that is starting to perk right now. It’s coming out. The biggest oil companies in the world are going in and numbers are absolutely incredible. When you add the United States and Venezuela together, we have more than 60 percent of the oil in the world. So it’s perhaps the biggest deal. It was a war, but it’s perhaps the biggest deal ever made to the victor along the spoils.
As I noticed just days ago, the United States has also reached an unprecedented agreement regarding the northern frontier of North America, the large and strategically vital piece of land known as Greenland. This agreement made with the Kingdom of Denmark, an incredible beautiful country, and the Greenland people itself gives the United States permanent control over security and all other needs on that territory. We will have the complete ability to do what is necessary to defend the American continent and also Europe and other places. No US adversary will ever be permitted to establish a military presence in Greenland anymore or make sensitive investments there without our express written approval. We will immediately begin the process of developing a large military presence in the appropriate locations. We will be building two very major military bases. This agreement will be signed later today, and I look forward to working with the wonderful people of Denmark and Greenland. It’s been a great experience, amazing experience, and we’ve really formed a bond in doing it by expanding America’s footprint in the Arctic and North Atlantic.
It was not signed. No such agreement exists. Yet he announced it to the world as though it were a done deal. Why? Because in Donald’s mind, his saying something makes it real. His wanting something to be true transforms it into truth, at least for him, and he seems unable to comprehend why the rest of the world doesn’t simply accept his version of events as gospel.
The moment he addressed artificial intelligence, or as he insisted on calling it from that point forward, super intelligence, we got perhaps the clearest view yet into his delusional thinking.
Donald: From this point forward, all of United States documents and hopefully the world’s will be changed to use the much more accurate term super as opposed to artificial. So it’s super intelligence. In other words, welcome to the new world of super intelligence, SI. Let’s see if that goes. It sounds much better. It is much better and it’s much more accurate. Let’s see if I have any power. Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. We’re going to find out pretty soon.
He believes that by declaration, he can change the terminology used by the entire world. He is not joking. He is not being playful or rhetorical. He genuinely believes that his saying this at the United Nations means it will now happen. This is the thinking of someone who has lost the ability to understand how the world actually works, how language functions, how institutions operate.
And then he pivoted to an attack on what he calls the same group of people who came up with the Russia hoax, the Ukraine hoax, climate change, and open borders.
Donald: Yet the very same people who said we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming, a name since rebranded as climate change because the planet was cooling not warming and nobody was dead. These are the same people that are now saying that AI is going to kill us all, that robots are going to attack us and that everything is going to be a total disaster. Same group of people. This is a group that came up with Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, the Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine hoax, climate change, open borders. Whoever wins AI, you have to remember this. And now I say whoever wins SI, whoever wins super intelligence wins. That’s the group that wins and we’re leading now over China by a lot and everyone else and we’re going to keep it that way. We’re going to keep it very, very straight and very strong.
The grammatical breakdown alone tells you something about his cognitive state. But more than that, he is once again presenting a false equivalence. Climate scientists never said everyone would be dead in 12 years. The statement was that without significant action on climate change, we would face catastrophic consequences within a certain timeframe. That is not the same thing. But more importantly, his dismissal of climate science because the planet wasn’t cooling is absurd. The planet has been warming at an accelerating rate. We have had record temperatures. We have seen unprecedented weather events. None of this is a hoax.
Yet he stands before the world and insists upon it.
What makes this so dangerous is that Donald is no longer operating within the confines of what might be called a personality disorder. He is no longer simply a narcissist or a sociopath. He is a man whose relationship to objective reality has fundamentally broken down. When he speaks, he is not filtering facts through a self-serving lens. He is speaking from a place in which his fantasies have become, for him, indistinguishable from fact.
He has been given the power of a nuclear arsenal, control over America’s military, and the ability to set foreign policy for the most powerful nation on Earth. And he is using that power to act out his psychological pathologies on the world stage.
The most chilling moment of his remarks came right at the beginning, when he presented the choice before him regarding Iran not as a policy decision to be made in consultation with his advisors, his military, his intelligence agencies, and Congress, but as his personal decision. And he did so in language that suggested he was genuinely considering whether to destroy an entire nation.
This is not normal. This is not something we should accept or accommodate or attempt to spin as anything other than what it is: a deeply disturbed individual revealing his complete unfitness to hold the office of the presidency.
The rest of his speech was essentially a cascade of lies punctuated by moments of profound delusion. What we witnessed at the United Nations was not a president speaking to the world. It was a man in psychological crisis, broadcasting his deterioration in real time, while representatives from other nations sat and watched the leader of the free world lose his grip on reality.
And we, as a nation, need to understand what this means. We need to understand that with each passing day, the danger Donald poses to this country and to the world grows exponentially more severe. The breaking point is here. We are watching it unfold before our eyes.
I agree with most of what you said, but (like Jon Calv) I need to point out that Maduro was captured and is still in jail in New York. Please clarify.
What bothers me more are those around him who continue to make excuses for his mental decline. Those who continue to explain to everyone what he "really meant" to say, how they constantly turn a blind eye to his obvious lies and delusions. Are they seriously that afraid of him or do they love the power and control he allows them to have. None of this is normal. None of it.