U.S. President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill, the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 24, 2026. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon
President Donald Trump could unleash a new wave of violence in the Iran war after the midterms, and as one leading psychiatrist warned, he seems to lack the "mental capacity" to understand what he might soon unleash.
Bandy X. Lee is a top forensic psychiatrist who specializes in violence and violence prevention. She has also written and spoken extensively about Trump and the dangers he has posed since he entered into the political realm. She previously edited a bestselling book of essays about Trump's erratic mind, one which was reportedly consulted by members of his own first-term staff. She also consulted with members of Congress during the start of his first term to discuss the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
Lee was recently interviewed by the Five Minute News podcast, where she said she was gravely concerned about Trump's next steps in Iran, since he can only grasp war as one escalation after another. She also explained why Trump's impending "downfall" makes this one of the most dangerous periods in all of American history.
"This perhaps is the most dangerous period in American history because dangerous individuals become the most dangerous before their downfall," Lee said. "And that is why allowing fascist regimes to continue and to harness more and more power to themselves is so dangerous, and we cannot underestimate the level of danger."
She continued: "Donald Trump himself said that he’s going to hold back until the midterms, and after the midterms may be ready to unleash his anger on Iran, and we’ve already lost the war on Iran, but he cannot accept that, and his thinking simply goes to bigger and bigger bombs."
Lee also warned of the "very dire" circumstances the world faces as Trump weighs the possibility of a nuclear strike on Iran, a very real concern given his long-documented obsession with nuclear weapons and his own authority to deploy one.
“[Trump] doesn’t quite understand the ramifications and doesn’t have the capacity to understand the ramifications of a nuclear war and he’s incredibly attracted to the prospect of using them," Lee added. "So we’re in a very dire situation."
She continued: "We have a military gone rogue where the best minds have been eliminated either through firing or resignations. And we have Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who has said that the world may have to undergo lots of destruction to be renewed, in his view, in his Armageddon-attracted mindset, and so we’re in perhaps the most dire and dangerous situation we have ever been in.”