'Not a mentally well man': Experts analyze uncensored Trump interview

If you claim to love or otherwise care about the health and future of the United States, you have a civic and moral obligation to read President Trump’s full 75-minute, 11,000-word interview with Time magazine journalists Eric Cortellessa and Sam Jacobs, published last Thursday.

Do not rely on a summary, something paraphrased or translated by the media — or even the account of a trusted journalist or other public voice.

Do not assume that you have heard this all before. “What is new about this? I know exactly what Trump is going to say because I have been hearing it for years….” is neither adequate nor reasonable.

And please do not surrender to the excuse: “I am burned out, exhausted, and just want the midterms to get here so that Trump will be a lame duck in a few weeks.”

To do any of this is to abdicate your responsibilities.

Read Trump’s interview in its entirety. Sit with it. Process it. Then consider what you are really seeing and what it all means.

Here is a window into the mind of the world’s most powerful man. These are selections, not a substitute for reading the entire interview. What you will see is not good or comforting. The interview repeatedly shows grievance, grandiosity, a rejection of reality, unjust anger, and a deep attraction to violence.

Speaking about how the media covers his rallies and crowds, Trump said:

If I did something spectacular by any standard, and they would write about it, they will only write badly. Sometimes I'm amazed at how they can — you know, yesterday I got tremendous applause from massive crowds that came to Duncan. And I said to the people, “Don't feel bad tomorrow when you read that I got booed out of the place.” I didn't get booed out of the place.

I went to Tennessee. The crowd went wild. I went to, yesterday, to Chicago. Got the big golf tent. President’s coming. The crowd went absolutely wild.

The evidence suggests that the crowds at Trump’s recent rallies have been very modest, with many empty seats. More broadly, the responses have been extremely muted and low-energy compared with earlier Trump rallies during the 2024, 2020, and 2016 campaigns.

When asked about his earlier promise that the Iran war would be over quickly, Trump blamed the media. Here is the exchange:

Do you think the American people misunderstood that? I feel like most people heard you say four to six weeks.

No, I think the press fed it to them.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to annihilate Iran. Asked how he reconciles those threats with his claim that he wants to be a president of peace, Trump responded:

Because by annihilating Iran, we've created peace in the world. With Iran, I don't think you could ever have peace.

To reiterate: Trump told Time that destroying an entire nation and its people is a prerequisite for peace.

Trump’s public approval ratings are in the low thirties.

Trump’s response was:

They’re fake numbers. I would beat anybody running today by 20 points. Your numbers that you have are fake. The pollsters are corrupt. They’re almost as corrupt as the writers.

Trump described his economic record in grand terms:

I care about the American economy more than any human being that's ever been president, but I also have to put out the fire. I have to put out the fire in the Islamic Republic…

When I took over, I inherited the greatest inflation in history. I inherited the greatest price hikes in history. Remember when they started screaming at me about eggs in my first day, because eggs had gone up like five times higher than they were in my administration. Now I've got them down. I've got—I've gotten much of it down. The only thing I have to get down now is the gas, and almost everything else is coming down rapidly.

Asked about deploying ICE agents (and presumably other federal forces, including the military) during the upcoming midterms, Trump replied:

Do you plan to dispatch ICE agents to polling places in the midterms?

Haven't thought of it.

Would you rule out declaring a state of emergency in the lead up to the midterms unless there's widespread violence in the streets?

I don't rule anything out or in. We'll see. You mean the Insurrection Act?

Yeah.

No, I've never used it. I could use it. A lot of people think I should use it sometimes….

Near the end of the interview, Trump became furious, complaining that they had not asked him about his White House construction projects and other “successes” and “accomplishments” in a sufficiently positive way:

You haven’t asked me one f------- positive question. All of this. What about this? What about that? What about that? What about this? All negative. Why are you devoting all this time to the White House? . . .

I asked Dr. Bandy Lee, a forensic and social psychiatrist, one of the world’s leading experts on violence, and the editor of the book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, to analyze Trump’s Time interview.

Lee told me that he is a “spellbinder”:

Mental health experts have known this from the start of his first presidency, but I believe the Time magazine interview has demonstrated for the lay public that this is not a mentally well man. What people may have been unaware of is that some of the most psychologically dangerous individuals are often also the most charming and manipulative. In political psychology, they are often called, “spellbinders.”

Adolf Hitler himself was called a “seismograph of crowds.” They compensate for their defects in human qualities, such as compassion and a conscience, by mimicking the opposite, and the nation was hypnotized into voting in — twice — a dangerously psychopathic man whose only talent was hiding his extreme mental impairments well.

Lee warns that Trump’s dangerousness is increasing, not decreasing:

What people do not understand is that violent individuals are the most dangerous, not when they feel strong, but when they feel the weakest.

Now that he is markedly declining cognitively and emotionally — unable to get the “fuel” he needs from the adulation of crowds—his “smoke and mirrors” tactics are waning, too. This is when the public can get complacent, believing that Donald Trump will finally have his reckoning.

This is what I have asserted from the very beginning, but never has it been more exigent.

Lee makes clear that she does not see Trump’s threats to destroy an entire country and its people as hollow fantasies, but as part of an escalating pattern of behavior:

We should not ignore what he said during his earlier United Nations speech: “Do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance…? Do I drive them into hell, with no chance of survival and no hope of future…?” We must remember that this is a man with a history of violence who is now continually fantasizing about nuclear annihilation of another country—which will mean the annihilation of humankind.

Dr. Vincent Greenwood’s analysis echoes Dr. Lee’s findings. Greenwood is a psychologist and executive director of the Washington Center for Cognitive Therapy. He believes that Trump exhibits a profound and rare level of apparent dangerousness, along with behavior that may be pathological.

He explains the methodology behind his assessment:

This assessment process for clinical psychopathy is rigorous and possesses solid reliability and validity metrics.

Most critically, it does not require a personal interview since it is based on the appraisal of traits and well-established behavior patterns that require life history information, not information gleaned from a face-to-face exam of symptoms or mental status. Of course, with Trump, abundant life history information is available from the public record.

If one is panning for clinical psychopathy in the Time interview, you will find a motherlode.

Greenwood highlights several examples from the Time interview, beginning with Trump’s apparent impulsivity:

Trump’s impulsivity shows up in “I don’t rule anything out or in. We’ll see…” when he mentions possibly weaponizing the Insurrection Act in the upcoming elections. There is no mention of any kind of limiting principle. All policy is subjugated to his egocentric desires. On one thorny issue after another, such as rising costs, ammunition shortages, or prolonged war, he offers expansive, glib reassurances without any hint of a plan or serious reflection.

Greenwood then explores what appears to be remorselessness, a lack of conscience, and a desire for domination:

His remorselessness is reflected most strongly in his response to questions about Iran and exemplified in his recurring threats of “annihilation” of innocent people without any expression of concern. He seems oblivious to harmful consequences; indeed, he comes across as celebrating the harm he can unleash.

Another example of his lack of conscience is saying he would give pre-emptive pardons without examining wrongdoing (“Yeah, sure I’d do that.”)

Trump’s drive to dominate is revealed in his constant insistence that other entities — Iran, the Supreme Court, CNN, the Kennedy Center, major companies — recognize his dominant position or face punishment. The punishments range from “annihilation” and punitive tariffs to restricting access to the press and demolishing the building.

Greenwood concludes:

Trump is in the throes of this trifecta of destructive traits. They rule every move he takes, every comment he makes.

The Time interview shows that Donald Trump, in one narrow sense, is the most honest president in American history. This is not honesty born of moral virtue or profound ethics. He has shown himself to be a serial, if not pathological, liar. Trump’s honesty is instead a kind of raw transparency: an increasingly uncensored and unrestrained man and mind.

In less than a month, the midterm election will be here. Based on the historical trends and the high levels of disapproval for Trump and the Republicans, the Democrats are highly favored to win control of the House, and they will be relieved and jubilant. But it could be one of the most perilous times in American history. Trump will be enraged. His Time interview shows that he is capable of doing almost anything to keep total power.

When the authoritarian speaks, believe him.

Chauncey DeVega is a politics and opinion writer whose work considers American democracy, inequality, political power, and the enduring significance of race in American society and the wider world. He was formerly a senior politics writer at Salon. His essays and commentary have been cited by The New York Times, The Washington Post, the BBC, NPR, The Atlantic, and other leading publications. He hosts two podcasts: The Chauncey DeVega Show and The Truth Report.