Shrinking Trump: Forensic Psychiatrist Claims Trump's 'Psychological Dangers' Are Worsening

hi everybody I'm Diane Brady I'm here with Dr Bandy Lee who is a forensic psychiatrist specializing in violence and you're also the editor of the dangerous case of Donald Trump that was written a few years ago Dr Lee and first of all welcome um what are you seeing now um well I see that everything that we were concerned about uh it's now six years ago that we published the book myself and 26 other mental health professionals at the time that everything that we had warned against unfortunately has come true and one of the aspects that we were most concerned about was that over time his dangers would grow in terms of not just in terms of a more dangerous case of Donald Trump but also in terms of what we've been saying uh Trump contagion which is kind of like a psychological epidemic I can explain more later but we don't think of psychological symptoms as being infectious or contagious but you know one of the concerns at the time the book came out was this idea of diagnosing a public figure or any figure that you haven't personally treated how do you deal with actually thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify that we were not diagnosing that's the furthest thing from what we were trying to do what we were doing was actually warning against his psychological dangers and uh his potential unfitness for his job and in fact anyone who is dangerous and places other people in danger is automatically unfit for just about any job in the United States except for elected office and um so it was important for us to warn the public as a public health responsibility that we have as mental and mental health and medical professionals so it's not diagnosing in what I'm still trying to draw the line here is that it's not diagnosing because you're talking about the ecosystem he's created or how would you draw the distinction uh it's different in that diagnosis is usually for a private patient for whom you will be providing individual treatment and that usually comes with a personal examination and the information that you obtain is kept confidential but in the case of a public figure who is posing a danger to others or the public then it becomes a public health issue where the patient is not really the public figure but the public itself and it says in our ethics guidelines that we have a responsibility not just to individual patients but to society is this the gold water is it called the Goldwater rule what is that about because I know that was something else that people have raised and it's I think it's good to just address some of the the challenges that you've obviously encountered and spoken about a lot in the last few years well obviously when there is danger such as this and a great undermining of our Democratic institutions and traditions then voices that are relevant to the times and could educate the public and empower the public are often the first to be silenced and uh so it was a sign of great dangers to come not just because of this one individual but to our society and our Democratic institutions do you do you look around at the let's say the current field of candidates you know we have a number of people who've come forward for the GOP nomination you know people are looking at Ron DeSantis Nikki Haley various others Joe Biden I know that people have a lot of questions it's become very politicized as to his Fitness for office how do you look at that situation do you have any sort of comparable assessments um uh so to clarify I usually don't uh certainly don't diagnose and I don't normally con comment on political figures except when they pose a great danger to the nation and there is enough information to be able to offer opinions that would add to what the public already sees and certainly I would say that more generally that this Trump contagion that we were warning against since the very beginning because a mentally impaired uh person had the powerful influence of the U.S presidency for the full not only for the full term but in fact in my book profile of a Nation Trump's mind America's soul I described that his presidency essentially never ended because there was no intervention that was commensurate to the problem at hand and so that's very much what has continued in the mind of many of his supporters so you don't see any just to clever you don't see any comparable threats with the other candidates or other people in the public sphere right now that would warrant the same attention that Donald Trump warned so that that would just just so people um watch and understand if they did pose a similar threat you would have a similar warning about other people like Iran DeSantis or Joe Biden if the warning warranted uh an individual which is not diagnosing but warning against the dangers of the individual in that position currently I would say that the danger is greater than ever uh and even the dangers of Donald Trump are greater than ever because he could still win he could still win the candidacy and could still win the presidency not because of Any legitimate reasons but in spite of everything that has happened and in spite of all the indictments his ratings are have been rising since the indictments his fundraising has been going up so this is the kind of thing that I uh that I've been trying to point out is a kind of psychological epidemic if you will and that his powers have grown despite uh people's unwillingness to support him um his influence has grown and he has had many imitators as a result and this is not just rational strategy but truly the spread of symptoms and the spread of uh the dysfunction that he has brought to to the politics so I I want to be I always try to tread carefully because you know we're not partisan and you know we have many people who are to the right to the left how do you how do you respond to the criticism Dr Lee that that this feels like a partisan attack you know um that you know you don't like Donald Trump you wouldn't vote for him so you're pathologizing him and his presidency that's why it's very important to speak about mental health aspects in general terms uh it's important for the public to be educated especially when it's become such a critical issue uh in the political field so but when you unpack the Hallmarks of of what we're talking about with regard to the dangers here what are what are some of the classic signs that that you've identified that distinguish this and you know is there a history like can you look at other parts of the world or times in history we'd say this is a classic scenario a yes absolutely this has happened in many other cultures and advanced societies have not been immune just as individuals can fall into an illness and they once the illness takes course it can sometimes only worsen unless there's proper intervention and that's very much what we're seeing with Society a well-known example is a German Society where many people are still alive and remember what happened there it had one of the most advanced uh cultures it's literature music um economy and its military force with the Bismarck it was one of the most powerful Nations and yet uh it too had succumbed to a kind of you might call it Hitler contagion or Nazi contagion in that mental symptoms are often thought to be confined to the individual but they are in fact psychosocial and they can spread in fact spread more rapidly than uh the the ordinary infectious diseases we think about and this isn't important characteristic well what would use is there any contemporary examples because we talk a lot about strong man politics you know can't think of any women at the moment but I'm sure there could be strong women politics too but are you seeing examples in the current um you know well obviously we've got Putin in Russia Xi Jinping you know I don't want to pick on those two but they come to mind would that be comparable or do you see that as a different category Saudi Arabia Israel um with Netanyahu yes um all these examples all of the above so what's unusual is not so much uh what happens um not so much the kind of person who uh instigates this but um because persons with these mental impairments are actually commonly found as a forensic psychiatrist I've probably treated hundreds of them and in fact treated close to a thousand individuals I uh whom I could point out how Donald Trump resembles but what is unusual is the power that they are granted and their inability to handle that power so in fact elected offices are the only offices that do not require mental competence but every other job every other task requires it and it we would do well in fact if we did require it what specific impairments are are you looking at that are the biggest red flags for you because you said it feels like it's a more dangerous situation now yes uh because of behaviors and characteristics that have not been contained can you speak specifically about what you're talking about the violence proneness uh the aggressive rhetoric um the dismantling of governmental institutions or media uh institutions that get in the way of these individuals goals they hunger for power but they don't know how to handle the power so they abuse it and the more it becomes apparent as a result of the power that they hold that they are not capable of handling the power the more it will become severe and the more they will cling to power so in fact because they cannot govern themselves or set limits on themselves on their own it is incumbent on the healthy segment of society or the outside public to Place restrictions and limits would every dictator or want to be dictator fall into this category that you're talking about many of them do there's there's only a certain collection of disorders that um that that do get out of hand in this manner why does it feel more dangerous now I mean we've had we've had number of hearings you know you're talking with somebody who's facing you know multiple days in court potentially why would it feel worse it could go either way this could be an opportunity to contain the person uh there have been numerous opportunities along the way uh probably even better ones while he was president and shortly after um and the 25th Amendment or what type of opportunities yes in the very beginning in fact we were invited to speak with Congress members the 25th amendment was seriously thought about and the drafter of the 25th Amendment actually said that data and medical data should guide the implementation but as I said there have been other rhetorics that have been advanced disinformation in fact I would say that we were diagnosing that we were using Psychiatry as a political tool not pointing out medical facts when in fact that's what we were doing it must have been um well before I go into like the impact yourself talk about why it's more dangerous now because it's we feel it's been normalized or what is the danger now Norms have been broken it has become absolutely normal and regular to lie as a politician it has become um normal to uh Advanced non-facts or disinformation or to entirely change the narrative that has no connection to reality and that's a very dangerous situation because you can create a parallel reality and no one individuals to blame for that obviously we can look at the social media platforms we can look at you know cyber crime you know in terms of the disinformation campaigns let me uh switch to asking about you personally because I feel um you know when you stand up and you speak out about these things the consequences both you know in terms of your job in terms of you know the public reaction how has it been for you um you know just the blowback because you've faced a lot of anger and I can't imagine how you deal with that as a professional uh well I actually have dealt with violent individuals all my career um I've worked in prison settings and uh taught law students who represent Asylum Seekers from dangerous regimes I've done that at Yale law school for 17 years and so this kind of reaction is Not Unusual in fact it's rather we we still have more uh far more privilege and rights than any other uh environment that being said uh it was the blowback itself that indicated to me the level of danger we were in because the relevant voices who will speak the truth who will educate the public with the best available knowledge intellectuals journalists these would be the individuals who would primarily be targeted in dangerous times like this and all the more it's important to speak up do you feel that that the reception now is different than when you first came out with these um you know the the book for example before um as Donald Trump was going into office well public reception has always been very strong even when we were um suppressed from the media uh the the public has always come back to us we have an organization the world mental health Coalition and we got messages all the time where are the psychiatrists where are the psychologists and um but now after many years of uh exclusion from public discourse and there's kind of a very odd stigma that didn't exist in the beginning in the very beginning it was I was actually impressed that despite mental health issues being difficult to talk about the media seemed directly to come to the the the pertinent experts for the pertinent topic but mental health professionals became the only professionals not allowed speak about their area of expertise as far as this is concerned and that really has had a detrimental effect to society because in my view it's still the most relevant discussion to have um so what would be your message now to sum up I mean obviously you've talked about uh you know that we're in more danger and the reality is the voters will decide right and that's in many ways we've decided that's the way it should be you know the courts the voters you know we can add our voices what about for you in terms of how you're spending your time you know you've become a public figure you have your sort of private clientele are you do you have a different sense of mission now having gone through this experience and continuing to watch what's happening in the political sphere well nothing really has gone differently than my expectation in fact my greatest fears were confirmed and uh at a time like this it has occurred to me that staying within the academic position or the clinical position even as consultant in various States or nation states as I had done in the past were in terms of prison reform or violence prevention it's not really enough so I've actually been invited to co-found a violence Prevention Institute and so my colleagues and world-renowned colleagues in this area are getting together and we're forming a think tank to try to decide what would be best to do at times like this do you have any advice to finish up a step what brings us together we've become such a polarized country um you know and and and to criticize either side really sort of gives you a one-dimensional label at that time as to where you stand politically um I'm talking about myself as a journalist here what advice do you have as to as to how we come together or what the consequences could be if we don't um first of all I would say that uh as a medical person who is never politically uh involved in the past that uh medicine and Science and facts are actually a great place to come together and health versus disease is is an is a wonderful Paradigm because we would all like to be um drawn to toward health healthy Society healthy people healthy Society healthy people and if we help improve conditions to elevate levels of Health then everyone would benefit fragmentation itself is a sign of disease and so I'm continuing to work from the perspective of medicine and Psychiatry and violence prevention which is a public health concern and um and that's where uh working toward truth and repair and all are thriving is a great place to get together well thank you for joining us um to talk about the situation that we are in now and look forward to continuing the conversation thank you very much for having me thank you

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

Views: 46,803

Keywords: Bandy Lee, President Trump, contagion

Id: TlivH0Gu3Y4

Length: 20min 4sec (1204 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 20 2023