October 2, 2025 • 53 mins
SEASON 4 EPISODE 20: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: “The President is unhinged. He is Unwell. The President is Unwell.”
Representative Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania with perhaps the most important eleven words in the past decade, perhaps the most important eleven words in the history of this country, CERTAINLY the most important eleven words for the FUTURE of this country.
“The President is Unwell.”
We have at LEAST one – probably TWO – presidential health crises in full flower at the same time: And near as I can tell, only Representative Dean is talking about it (and directly to Speaker Mike Johnson, in what was not intended to be a public conversation) along with Governor Pritzker of Illinois, whose diagnosis was SIXTEEN words long and just as important. Quote: "There is something genuinely wrong with this man, and the 25th Amendment ought to be invoked."
The two crises are obvious: at his insane speech to the Generals Tuesday, Trump sounded as if his charger had been left unplugged for three weeks, his voice husky, indistinct, words slurred. And what he DID say made next to no sense. Pritzker suggests dementia which could explain both the rapidly declining mental capacity AND the audible collapse AND why Trump was invisible yesterday and had to send Vance to ride Day One of the government shutdown Trump orchestrated. It would all ALSO explain that missing week around Labor Day and the cabinet meeting – the LAST televised cabinet meeting – in which his Departmental Slaves shoveled twice as much laudatory BS as usual, as if it were a going-away roast for Trump.
Maybe it was.
“The President is unwell.”
CAN TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST? I have grown old talking about Trump's sanity. I first did it publicly in June, 2016, and a month later Vanity Fair published my article "Can Trump Pass A Sanity Test?" As I wrote then: short answer? Probably not. This is a layman using professional tools: an actual kind of "triage" test used by working psychology professionals to assess if somebody is injured, tripping, or psychopathic. I had an active therapist walk through the examination and assign the points per topic. It's an important time to review what we knew - or should have known - nine long years ago. Because he was unwell then, too.
B-Block (35:23) PART TWO OF "CAN TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST": We conclude the annotated 2016 piece on Trump's already provable mental distress with the disturbing reality that takes us back to where we began with Madeleine Dean's lament: "The president is unwell."
C-Block (56:00) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Quote
the President is unhinged, he is unwell. The president is unwell.
(00:32):
Representative Madeline Dean of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, with perhaps the
most important eleven words in the past decade, perhaps the
most important eleven words in the history of this country,
certainly the most important eleven words for the future of
this country, if any the president is unwell. We have
at least one, probably two presidential health crises in full
(00:55):
flower at the same time right now, and as near
as I can tell, only Representative Dean is talking about them.
Representative Dean and Governor Pritzker of Illinois, anyway, whose diagnosis
was sixteen words long, and his was just as important quote,
there is something genuinely wrong with this man, and the
twenty fifth Amendment ought to be invoked. The two crises
(01:20):
are obvious. At his insane speech to the General's Tuesday,
Trump sounded as if his charger had been left unplugged
for three weeks. His voice was husky, indistinct, words slurred
and slowed and trailing off, and what he did say
made next to no sense. Pritzker suggests dementia, which could
(01:42):
explain both the rapidly declining mental capacity and the audible collapse,
and why Trump was invisible yesterday and why he had
to send JV Vance to try to and fail to
bully the White House Press Corps on day one of
the government shutdown that Trump orchestrated. Where the hell was he?
It would all also explain that missy week around Labor
(02:05):
Day and the Cabinet meeting, the last televised cabinet meeting,
in which his departmental slaves shoveled twice as much laudatory
bullshit as usual as if it were a going away
roast for Trump. Maybe it was the President is unwell.
Congress Woman Dean did not just say that. She said
(02:27):
it directly to one of Trump's most shameless political prostitutes,
speaker Mike Johnson. She said it with video rolling down
a house corridor. The audio fights for your attention, but
it's there. She said it. She said it, Thank God.
Some Democrats said it to some Republican seriously and carrying
(02:48):
enough weight to convey the risk the nation. Not just
the Democrats, not just the immigrants, not just the people
who are not in on Trump's corruption, not just the
blue states the risk the nation is at because the
president is unwell. Was recorded from Afar, and the audio
hurts your ear and it hurts your brain, but the
(03:11):
words are there. Here is just a few seconds of them,
plus the remarks from Pritzker. The president is unwell, Hockey.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And she.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Is dispriss.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Is it racist?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
You put us a rare up on the blacks, the
leader of the House. You don't see that as racist.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Appears that Donald Trump not only has dementia set in,
but he's copying tactics of Vladimir Putin, sending troops into cities,
thinking that that's some sort of proving ground for war,
or that indeed there's some sort of internal war.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Going on in the United States. It is just frankly inane,
and I'm concerned for his health. There is something genuinely
wrong with this man, and the twenty fifth Amendment ought
to be invoked.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The rest of the tape is only intermittently clear. Representative
Dean was confronting Speaker Johnson about Trump's deranged and rambling
speech to the generals summoned to Virginia by the equally
unwell Secretary of Defense, Pete brill cream hegseeth quote the
president is unhinged, he is unwell, and later from the congresswoman,
(04:38):
oh my god, that performance in front of the generals.
The president is unwell. He said the military should use
American cities as training grounds. He said America is under
invasion from within. He appeared on the stage in Quatico
Tuesday morning, and he was expecting applause and didn't know
what to do when he didn't get it, and he
then begged for it because the president is unwell. And
(05:02):
Congresswoman Dean bless Her set it out loud, said it
without spin, said it without any of the soul sucking
rehearsed add ons like and he should be focused on
helping Americans, just saying it, just saying in essence, no, no, no, no.
The rest of this is trivia. The president is unhinged,
(05:24):
the president is unwell, yet the president is still in
charge and the speaker, he answered by telling the congresswoman
he didn't see Trump unravel in front of the generals,
which could be true, but I bet it's not what
he told Trump. Johnson also said the AI racist video
of Schumer and Jeffries was just a joke and asked
(05:46):
Dean if it really was racist, which could be true,
but I bet that's not what he told himself. Once
you live one line, Mike Johnson, the next fifty thousand
are easy. The President also posted a nauseating, racist, demeaning
AI video. It had a fake Chuck Schumer and a
fake Akeem Jeffries, and the fake Akeem Jeffries had a
(06:07):
sombrero and what is commonly referred to as a mustache,
an exaggerated mustache added onto his head. Trump did this
after having posted a nauseating, deceptive, dangerous AI video with
a fake Fox News report supposedly narrated by his own
daughter in law, in which he essentially promised Americans immortality
(06:28):
in special hospital beds that don't actually exist. Early yesterday afternoon,
his ren Field. In this equation, Vance mocked those who
called the racist video you know racist, said he didn't
understand why a black man would find a fabricated video
of himself wearing a sombrero racist. Late yesterday afternoon, someone
(06:50):
acting in Trump's name made sure we all got the
point that the Trump White House is this close to
having Press Secretary Levitt or somebody else wear blackface. It
began to play Trump's sombrero video on a loop on
monitors in the White House Press briefing room. In other words,
Trump did just about the usual number of insane things,
(07:13):
or others did them on his behalf. That a functioning
but still insane man will do every day as he's
done for most of the last ten years. Only these
days have been different, and that day was totally different.
It was only a start, but it was a start.
(07:33):
Dean said something, Pritzker said something. What it could mean
in a moment, what it has meant in the last decade,
in a moment, first those receipts from Quantico, and then
one more time from Representative Dean.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
I've never walked into a room so silent before. This
is very don't left on't lif if you're not allowed
to do that, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I just have a good time. And if you want
to applaud, you applugg.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
And if you want to do anything you want, you
can do anything you want. And if you don't like
what I'm saying, you can leave the room. Of course,
there goes your rank, there goes your future. And I
told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities
as training grounds for our military National Guard, but military
because we're going into Chicago versus that's a big city
(08:19):
with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor, stupid. They threw him
out of his family business. He was so stupid, I
know the family. He becomes governor, he's got money, not
money that he made, but he ran for governor won,
and now he criticizes us all the time. And last
month I signed an executive order to provide training for
(08:40):
a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances.
And this is going to be a big thing for
the people in this room because it's the enemy from
within and we have to handle it before it gets
out of control. It won't get out of control, and
this is going to be a major part for some
of the people in this room. That's a war too,
it's a war from within.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
The president is unwell. I have literally grown old insisting
the president is unwell. When I started, he wasn't even president.
I have been the boy who cried wolf because there
has been a wolf at the door since twenty fifteen,
(09:25):
and it's Trump's mental instability, and it has been getting worse,
which is pretty bad because it started at narcissism and
self obsession and not really human like. And now now
it's ten years later, plus whatever is physically wrong with him,
whatever that is, seems to be on the way to
its victory. And you are not hearing about this on
(09:49):
the news, right wing news understandably, why would they want
to talk about this, But for the rest of it,
you're not hearing about it because the entirety of the
mainstream political media in this country is still equipped only
to cover about eight kinds of stories, and a desperately
mentally ill or desperately physically ill president is not one
(10:12):
of those eight kinds of stories. Government shutdowns, about which
the media always always always looks into the wrong end
of the telescope, are one of the eight. That one
of eight or so is also about how many American
citizens have even the slightest awareness of or interest in
a shutdown, certainly in its first week. That's just a coincidence.
(10:36):
I can't speak to what's wrong with Donald Trump physically,
but it's not good. And you and I have already
gone through the clues that have escaped from the pavement,
like gray skin on the hand that he covers up
with the other hand, whenever he can, to the makeup
atop the plastic wrap used on that hand, to the
(10:57):
often indistinct and slurring voice, the slurred words, the eyes
for some reason reduced to slit. Yes, but if we
all live through this, the subject that will surprise historians
the most is for how long it was clear this
man was mentally incompetent and nobody did anything about it. Ordinarily,
(11:18):
I would say my conscience was clear about this because
I first brought it up in June of twenty sixteen
on the Chelsea Handler Show on Netflix. Yes there was one,
look it up. Then the next month Vanity Fair published
a piece I did called could Trump Pass a Sanity Test?
And we made a video of it. Apparently I didn't
(11:39):
talk loud enough on the Chelsea Handler Show, or the
article wasn't long enough, or we didn't make enough videos.
I'm going to tank the could Trump pass a Sanity
Test article and read it again, now virtually unchanged with
a few notes, because it's all still true, only way worse.
(11:59):
But it was all there when this article came out
one hundred and eleven months ago, one hundred and eleven
could Trump Pass a Sanity Test? July twenty first two
thy sixteen short answer, probably not. First, several important caveats.
(12:27):
There is little worse and nothing cheesier than questioning the
psychological stability of a public figure, especially a candidate for president,
even in this case, except that, in his year of campaigning,
Donald Trump has called Lindsey Graham a nut job, Glen
Beck a real nut job, and Bernie Sanders a wacko.
(12:47):
Trump has insisted Ben Carson's got pathological disease, and asked
about Barack Obama is our president insane? He called Ted
Cruz unstable, unhinged, a little bit of a maniac, and
crazy or very dishonest. He also called the entire cnb
C channel crazy. He called Megan Kelly crazy at least
(13:09):
six times. Respectful reticence about aspersions and cliches and mental
health questions in a time in which mocking was seemingly
slowly maturing into concern that died a long time ago
in this presidential cycle of twenty sixteen, and it died
at Donald Trump's hands. Moreover, if the question is asked
(13:32):
seriously and not gratuitously, just the examination might explain how
Trump has seemingly survived dozens of moments that might each
have been campaign enders for almost anybody else. Why have
we not asked if a given presidential candidate might be
disqualified from office due to psychological reasons? Because we not
(13:53):
only can't see this forest for the trees, but each
time we try, there are even more trees blocking our view.
In the twenty four hour news cycle, each successive John
Yerkey's Iceland moment is not registered cumulatively. It merely supplants
the one from last week or yesterday this morning. This
(14:16):
could also explain Trump's seeming imperviousness to his own mind
bending campaign. Surely it must be exhausting to attack the
Pope February eighteenth attack, President Clinton, May eighteenth, attack, John
McCain July eighteenth, attack, Mexicans June sixteenth, attack Muslims December
(14:36):
eighth attack, candidates who use a teleprompter May twenty sixth,
just before you give a speech using a teleprompter, May
twenty sixth. It's got to be exhausting, unless, as the
old joke goes, no pain no gain, also no brain,
no pain anyway. The actual sanity test I found for
(15:00):
this article is called, by delicious coincidence, the hair psychopathy
checklist revised, introduced by a Canadian criminal psychologist named Robert D.
Hare in nineteen eighty, and that's Hare. It's still in
use in some quarters, though with ever more diffuse and
specific mental health diagnoses. It is not without its critics, however,
(15:24):
as a practicing therapist who walked me through it agreed,
it serves as a kind of triage device to separate
the injured from the tripping from the psychopathic. And about
that word, we seem to have completely muddled up sociopath
and psychopath. Sociopath think Ted Kaczynski, the unibomber, living out
(15:48):
there and his shack in the woods, feeling nothing for
other humans and unable to interact with them, literally mailing
it in. Psychopath think Ted Bundy feeling nothing for other humans,
but having long ago learned how to expertly mimic relationships
by being whatever he needed to be to whomever he
(16:11):
needed to use, killing at least thirty women serving as
his own counsel, and cross examining a female witness, proposing
marriage to her while she was on the stand, and
getting her to say yes. For each of the twenty
items on the hair psychopathy checklist, you're supposed to assign
the subject a zero, one point or two. The highest
(16:35):
and most dangerous score is thus forty. In the United States,
the accepted minimum score for possible psychopathy meaning you might
be nuts, is thirty. So those are the rules. Let's
play the freud. The test begins with an assessment of
(16:56):
charm that is superficial, forced charm, faked charm? May I
dare say this Trump charm? I had interviewed Donald Trump
as long ago as nineteen eighty three, and I always
thought he was a horse's ass. But after running into
him when we both worked at NBC, and then in
(17:18):
the lobby of one of his apartment buildings in which
I lived, I was stunned to encounter a quiet, succinct,
seemingly sincere co worker and in essence landlord. In one role,
he described himself as an anti Bush pro Obama liberal.
In the other, he urged me to contact him personally
(17:39):
with any problems or suggestions about the building in which
I lived. And then he got on the campaign stage,
and boom, he was America's newest Mussolini impersonator. For a
long while, I was flummoxed as to which of these
truly mutually exclusive personalities was the act. Then I was
(18:00):
reminded that it didn't really matter, which that having multiple
personalities should by itself preclude one from having access to
multiple nuclear warheads. I was explaining this on Bill Maher's
show in November twenty fifteen when mar suddenly got so
(18:21):
g whiz that I almost didn't recognize him. Me too,
he exclaimed boyishly. Mar cynical to such a degree that
it makes me seem as earnestly faithful as a pope,
said He had just been as convinced as I was,
and thus just as stunned by this hydra of Trumpian
personas he'd always been nice to me. I can easily
(18:46):
imagine myself being taken in by a con artist like
Donald Trump. I mean, Trump wrote me a fan letter once.
But Mar mar who called me a corporate sellout in
nineteen seventy eight, when I had to that point earned
about two hundred dollars from all the corporations in the
world combined. He fooled Bill Maher. So if you're giving
(19:08):
out points about fake charm, Trump gets both of them.
The next topic was an excessive sense of self worth
no kidding, I feel like a supermodel, he said on
June eighteenth, twenty sixteen, in Phoenix. Except like Times ten,
It's true, I'm a supermodel. I'm on the cover of
these magazines. I'm on the cover of the biggest magazines.
(19:33):
This was stated by the first Oompealoopa American to run
for national office. He is bright orange. He is an
old man, affecting a hair color and style that would
have been rejected by the eighties synth pop group A
flock of seagulls. I served with supermodels. I knew supermodels.
(19:58):
Supermodels were friends of mine. Donald, You're no supermodel, but
that is two more points for you. The test moves
on to ask if the subject can't mentally sit still,
must he always try to make things happen good, bad,
or otherwise? Not easily bored, but almost impossible to focus?
(20:19):
Acknowledging that a lot of us get a point or
two here, I certainly do not. All of those job
changes of mine were their fault. Let me first quote
the introduction from Trump's think like a billionaire quote, don't
take vacations. What's the point? Have a short attention span?
Most successful people have very short attention spans. It has
a lot to do with imagination. Here are some of
(20:41):
the wide ranging businesses Trump's short attention span has dragged
him and the world into real estate, vitamins, rentals, books, condos,
trucolate bars, golf courses, pro football, beauty pageants, stakes, board games,
television hosting, bottled water, universities, men's wear, professional wrestling, mortgages, airlines, fragrances,
(21:03):
coffee restaurants, energy drinks, vodka, search, engines, your analysis, and
of course, bicycle racing. Bicycle racing the Tour de Trump,
in which I noted at the time, contestants raced three
hundred laps around his ego as a twenty twenty five aside.
(21:23):
Can we add crypto and flags and bibles and merch
and twenty sixteen hats and twenty twenty hats and twenty
twenty eight hats and twenty and thirty two hats and
mugshot merch, oh and influenced pedling and two more points?
The test now gets heavy? Is there lying involved? Again?
(21:47):
To June eighteenth, twenty sixteen, at the Woodlands in Texas
after the horrible Pulse Club shooting. Quote, if some of
those wonderful people had guns strapped right here right to
their waist or right to their ankle, and this son
of a bitch comes out and starts shooting, and one
of the people in that room happen to have it
and goes boom. You know what. That would have been
a beautiful, beautiful site, folks. That would have been a beautiful,
(22:09):
beautiful sight. June twenty two days later on Twitter, when
I said that if within the Orlando club you had
some people with guns, I was obviously talking about additional
guards or employees. Can I stop here or should I
walk you through the hot and cold running lies? Alternating
(22:30):
with the admissions of the Times in the nineties, he
pretended to be his own spokesman, John Miller and John
barn Or say virtually every other thing he said since
this article came out nine years ago. Another two points
on your scoreboard, please. The test then asks if the
patient is manipulative or cons people you think I'll add
(22:56):
today from the perspective of twenty twenty five, who should
we ask to write the guest essay on this question? Here?
Mike Pence, maybe Trump's own daughter Ivanka. I'm giving another
two points here. Next, we remove to the absence of
any sense of guilt or regret. Ask about his faith
(23:19):
at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa by the
moderator Frank Lunce in July twenty fifteen, Trump said, people
are so shocked when they find out I am Protestant,
I am Presbyterian, and I go to church and I
love God and I love my church. Lunce then followed
up with the soft fall of literally biblical proportions. Whether
(23:42):
Trump has ever asked God for forgiveness for his own
actions quote, I'm not sure I have. I just go
on and try to do a better job from there.
I don't think so. I think if I do something wrong,
I think I just try and make it right. I
don't bring God into that picture. I don't. Trump then
(24:03):
explained that Holy can Union sufficed. Quote when I drink
my little wine, which is about the only wine I drink,
and have my little cracker, I guess that is a
form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as
often as possible because I feel cleansed. I think in
terms of let's go on and let's make it right
unquote the art of the deal. Indeed, Trump picked up
(24:30):
this thread with Jake Tapper in January twenty sixteen, Again
the subject was religion. Quote, I like to be good.
I don't like to have to ask for forgiveness. Tapper
then asked about arrival, presumed to be Ted Cruz, who
was conducting field research into the efficacy of questioning Trump's
religious convictions. Quote, he shouldn't be doing that, very unethical.
(24:51):
Within a few weeks, Trump attacked Cruises religious convictions on
February twelfth. In fact, he tweeted, how can Ted Cruz
be an evangelical Christian when he lies so much and
is so dishonest. Not a week after that, Pope Francis
answered a question about Trump's overall tone quote, A person
who thinks only about building walls wherever they may be,
(25:14):
and not building bridges is not Christian. Within hours, Trump
slammed the Pope fantasized about an ISIS attack on the
Vatican that only he Trump could stop, and concluded this
remarkable circle of illogic by writing, for a religious leader
to question a person's faith is disgraceful. This is right
after he questioned a person's faith after he twice admitted
(25:37):
that his faith included the option to not ask forgiveness
and not quote bring God into that picture, and just
four months before he'd go back to this well and
question Hillary Clinton's faith again. That's two more solid points.
The next item had to be explained to me thoroughly
(25:58):
from my analyst friend. It's the psychological jargon term shallow affect.
In some its tone deafness when it comes to explaining
relationships between people. For instance, if somebody got up on
stage the sake of argument, we'll say it's Billy Joel
with Madison Square Garden, and that person insulted you by
(26:20):
sarcastically dedicating to you his song the Entertainer as a
way of saying you weren't a leader or a politician,
but merely an entertainer. You might take umbrage or at
least recognize the insult, not if you are suffering from
shallow effect. Thank you, Billy Joel, Trump tweeted on May
(26:41):
twenty seven, twenty sixteen. Many friends just told me you
gave me a very kind shout out at MSG appreciated
love your music. Another example of shallow affect would be
a kind of approach to how people influence each other's
lives that could be diagrammed as event B follows event,
(27:03):
a therefore event a caused event. B If say a
prominent athlete ignored you, or in some other tangential way
interacted with you before failing or being injured, you might
think in passing that you would somehow jinxed him, especially
if you were still nine or ten years old, but
(27:23):
you probably wouldn't publicly claim it, not unless you're suffering
from shallow affect. Quote Derek Jeter had a great career
until three days ago. Trump tweeted on October fifteenth, twenty twelve,
after the baseball player shattered his ankle during a game
when he sold his apartment at Trump World Tower, I
told him not to sell karma. The answer this chain
(27:48):
letter or many ankles will be broken theme was not
some early passing expression of the now familiar syndrome we
might describe as TWT tweeting, while Trump five days later
quote Derek Jeter broke ankle one day after he sold
his apartment in Trump World Tower, and just to finish
(28:09):
this off. Another aspect to shallow affect would be an
unwillingness to acknowledge reliance on others. On March sixteenth, twenty sixteen,
Trump was asked about which foreign policy consultancy was speaking
to I'm speaking with myself number one, because I have
a very good brain, he said, apparently seriously, I know
what I'm doing, and I listen to a lot of people.
(28:31):
I talk to a lot of people, and at the
appropriate time, I'll tell you who the people are. But
my primary consultant is myself, and I have a good
instinct for this stuff. As an aside, is the narrator
anywhere to know? He's off its break. On June twenty fourth,
twenty sixteen, in Scotland, Trump again described his dream consultant,
(28:54):
saying he spoke to quote foreign policy advisors all the time,
but the advice has to come from me. The advice
has to come from me. The effect is shallow. The
points score is not like that last statement. There's two
of them. Then it's on to lack of empathy. How
(29:16):
much lack of empathy can you have? June twelfth, twenty sixteen,
hours after the last shots had been fired at the
Pulse Club in Orlando, quote, appreciate the congrats for being
right on radical Islamic terrorism. I don't want congrats. I
want toughness and vigilance. We must be smart. As a reminder,
(29:37):
you cannot give fifteen hundred points for just one item
on the hair psychopathy checklist, even if that total is
seemingly deserved. Just just two more here, then there's a
lifestyle question. Does the subject of your exam live his
life as you know a parasite? This does not mean,
as I originally thought, living materially off mom and dad
(29:59):
or others, although that can be a minor component, especially
if dad gave you a million dollar loan own circle
nineteen seventy and you get nine million more from a
bank on the promise of your inheritance, and ultimately you
got about forty million on your father's death, and you
considered all that just a small start in life. No,
it has more to do with taking credit for the
(30:21):
work of others to the degree of erasing all record
of their contributions and slapping your name on their efforts,
often in transactions in which you are literally renting the
use of your name as a brand and nothing else.
You know, like Trump Pallace, the Tour to Trump, Trump Steaks,
(30:42):
Trump taj Mahal, Donald Trump, the Fragrance, and of course
Castle Trump you law. And just as in court, a
wife cannot be forced to give evidence of parasitic lifestyle
against her husband, despite Millennia Trump's convention speech fiasco in
twenty sixteen, unless her husband wrote or stole that for her,
remember that where her speech sounded suspiciously like Michelle Obamas.
(31:04):
Again just two points. The midpoint two point question asks
if the subject had poor behavioral controls, Well, what's your
definition of poor? As a twenty twenty five aside, I'd
like to note the next sentence was written by me
in twenty sixteen. Well, he had poor behavioral controls, but
(31:27):
everybody agrees he's going to dial it all back this
time right after he pivots pivots towards dialing it back,
right Judge Gonzalo Curiel, right, Don King, Joel Austin, Ben Roethlisberger,
Pete Rose, or anybody else who Trump claimed had endorsed
(31:48):
him when they had not, Or the Hispanic ABC reporter
he called a sleeze, or the losing Republican presidential hopefuls
he mocked in a video the day after he insisted
he was going to unite the Republican Party. So we
are at the halfway mark of this twenty sixteen exam,
and the article I wrote, could Trump pass a sanity test?
(32:08):
Two points per topic? Thirty or thirty five points is
real trouble. So far he's been graded for a possible
twenty points, and he has twenty points the rest of it.
The next topic is promiscuous sexual behavior. Oh, that's next.
(32:30):
This is countdown back with the second half of the
July twenty sixteen Vanity Fair article I wrote, can Trump
pass a sanity Test? Where, with the help of a therapist,
I tried to score how nuts he was even then
from afar. All this in light of Congresswoman Dean's pithy
(32:56):
and quick observation the President is unwell and Governor Pritzker's
invocation of invoking the twenty fifth Amendment to remove him
from office because there's something really wrong with him. Now,
to remind you, you're supposed to give the patient no
points one point or two point per topic. That's it,
(33:18):
no variations. So far we've done half of the topics,
ten of them, he's gotten twenty points. That's not the
flex that he would think it would be if you
told him to resume with the test. Is the individual
sexually promiscuous? Ahem. When I was a young radio sportscaster.
I was given the great opportunity to interview by telephone
(33:41):
a famous athlete who had just been suspended from his
sport because he had gone to work for a casino.
The athlete now deceased, but will still use a pseudonym.
We'll call him Jimmy Smith was expecting my call. This
as near as I can remember, it was the transcript
of the start of that call, ring, ring, voice sounding
(34:02):
kind of like Hattie McDaniel, Academy Award winning actress from
Gone with the Wind. Mister Smith's residence. Me uh hi.
Milton Richmond from UPI gave me mister Smith's number and
said he would be willing to give me a brief interview.
May I speak with him? Please? Voice sounding kind of
(34:24):
like Hattie McDaniel, the Academy Award winning actress from Gone
with the Wind, who's calling please me? My name is
Keith Olderman from UPI Radio. Jimmy Smith. This is Jimmy.
As silly as the story of the whole fake Trump
spokesman was. Of course he has invisible friends. Of course
(34:47):
they're pr flax. Lost in the laughter were three important details. Firstly,
as my conversation with Jimmy Smith and his imaginary housekeeper
suggests people do do this, but secondly, when they do it,
they usually try to disguise their own voice. Thirdly, rarely
do they assume other identities in order to provide the
(35:10):
second component to what we categorize as promiscuity, besides multiple
partners boasting about it. Nineteen ninety one, John Miller to
sue carswell than of people as of twenty and fifteen
with Vanity Fair, for whom I wrote this article. Quote,
(35:30):
He's meaning Trump, somebody that has a lot of options,
and frankly he gets called by everybody. He gets called
by everybody in the book. In terms of women, I
mean they call, They just call. He's living with Marla
and he's got three other girlfriends. Unquote Trump in his
own voice, pretending to be somebody else, talking about Trump
(35:51):
and the women he betted. That'll be two more points. Next,
the test asks if there were conduct problems early in
the subject's life. When I was a kid four or five,
I twice hit a friend of mine in the back
of the head with a metal toy. I remember shock blood,
(36:14):
no stitches, And then a series of family meetings we
talked the folks got some professional advice. They got me
into organized sports and exercise, and I quickly realized that
just because I was frustrated with somebody that was not
a good reason to hit them, regardless. When I had
my analyst friend run the hair psychopathy checklist on me,
(36:38):
I insisted she give me a point on this because
hitting a kid in the back of the head with
a toy fire engine and later a magnet was at
minimum an indicator of the potential for early behavior problems.
So if you're given me a point for this, how
many points would you give a child who attacked one
of his own teachers. Quote I actually gave a teacher
(37:02):
a black eye, Trump wrote in the Art of the
Deal in nineteen eighty seven, barely concealing his retroactively. He
placed the time of the assault as the second grade,
likely making him seven years old. Quote. I punched my
music teacher because I didn't think he knew anything about music,
and I almost got expelled. What kind of kid punches
(37:28):
an adult in the face? I mean, we hear about
punching up, but think back to being that age seven.
The one universal I can recall was that no seven
year old ever dreamt of trying to physically take on
an adult, for the simple and unavoidable reason that virtually
(37:52):
any adult was several times your own weight. If you
picked the wrong one, they might do more than just
defend themselves. Even knocking an adult down could be an
exercise in self destruction if he fell on you. The
most reality challenged of all of my young classmates the
kid who ran headfirst into the side of a moving
(38:14):
school bus for reasons that still remain unclear ten presidents later.
He would never have hit an adult. There is a
second version of the same story from a Trump biographer.
He did indeed give the teacher a black eye, but
not with a punch. He threw an eraser at him
and hit him just right, because that's way better. Regardless,
(38:40):
the version Trump tells is of the four foot tall
edition of himself punching what was at least a five
foot tall adult in the eye hard enough to give
the man a shiner. The only argument against calling this
early behavior problems is that the first word implies that
it stopped at some point two more points. The tests
(39:05):
you will have noticed bounces around a bit from topic
to topic. From early behavior, we switch back to long
term goals? Does the patient lack them? So far, mister
Trump is theoretically aced are exam but reality now invades
our idyllic scene. There could be a thousand things psychologically
wrong with the process by which Trump ends up with
(39:27):
a low score on this one. In the big picture,
you would never have thought Mussolini was less crazy just
because he left Italy for Switzerland in nineteen oh two
in part to avoid military service, and exactly twenty years
later Mussolini became head of the Italian state and often
dressed up in his military uniform. But tests are tests,
(39:49):
There are rules here. And if you say this guy
Trump so lacks realistic long term goals that he thinks
he can become president and he winds up president twice,
the long term goals turned out to be not that unrealistic.
Stick huh. As I look back at this article from
(40:09):
twenty twenty five, I desperately want to give Trump a
point on this one here, because once again he boasts
about having the very thing that psychology says is a
warning sign. Except you know, he was right he became president.
In the preface to Think like a Billionaire, Trump quotes
the author Richard Konniff quote. Almost all successful alpha personalities
(40:34):
display a single minded determination to impose their vision on
the world and irrational belief in unreasonable goals, bordering sometimes
on lunacy. And it worked for him. So on this one, Trump,
you'll get nothing and you'll like it. He could have
(40:56):
twenty six points. He only has twenty four. Next is
the patient impulsive. In March twenty sixteen, writing in Psychology Today,
doctor Glenn Geher offered a different definition of impulsiveness. It's
not necessarily the same as rashness or its positive twin
quick thinking. True impulsiveness usually leaves fingerprints of edgy, though
(41:17):
not automatically pernicious behavior. Rather, it makes one do these
things in the wrong place at the wrong time, like
as doctor Geher was analyzing discussing the size of your
penis during a presidential debate. He didn't include the other
examples where the context turns that behavior or that language
(41:41):
from borderline to impulsive. You might appropriately bring up that
topic in bed, or at a bar, or even at
your tailor's, but it's like saying a female presidential candidate
had been schlonged in a primary, like criticizing the face
of one of your female rivals during a speech like
(42:01):
crudely referring to a network television figures menstruation while on
a rival television network back to two points out of two.
Here down the stretch we come. This is another seemingly
easy item that is actually difficult to nail to the wall.
What is irresponsibility? Not crediting John McCain's heroism because he
(42:26):
got captured when you yourself avoided the military draft and
service four maybe five times? Is irresponsibility shown by taking
a position on guns in nightclubs that's so extreme that
the president and legislative director of the National Goddamned Rifle
Association condemned. It is irresponsibility at least to the millions
(42:47):
of lost souls who actually thought you'd make a great
American president rather than merely the last American president. Is
irresponsibility to even make a joke if it was a
joke that if you were offered five billion dollars to
drop out quote, I guess we'd have to think about it.
Is the word more applicable or less applicable if it
comes out the next day that during May your campaign
(43:10):
spent more than twice as much at business as you
own than it did on payroll. The problem with this
heading is that so much of what fits vaguely into irresponsibility, promiscuity, bankruptcy,
punching out your teacher fits like jigsaw pieces into the
other categories in this test. That doesn't mean the examples
(43:30):
are ineligible, just imprecise, but it does mean we have
to score conservatively. So let's give him one of the
two points. We are asked next to assess whether the
patient accepts responsibility for their own actions. Again, you cannot
give more than two points in any category. Both of
(43:53):
my favorite examples here involve interviews with the Washington Post.
Remember the Washington Post. On May twenty fourth, twenty sixteen,
Trump was caught having not yet donated the money from
the purported veterans fundraiser he staged as counter programming to
the January Republican debate that he bailed out of. The
Post quoted his remarks at the fundraiser, which was televised nationally.
(44:16):
We just cracked six million dollars, right, six million? Trump
replied to them, I didn't say six. The somewhat startled
Post staffer said it was on tape. Play it for me,
Trump replied, because I'd like to hear it, the Post reported.
Trump then manipulated the conversation to another topic, precluding the
playing of the video. Eleven days later, the tape of
(44:40):
him speaking in his own voice but pretending to be
his spokesman John Miller was revealed when during a phone interview,
a Post reporter brought up that proof the John Miller tape,
Trump simply hung up the phone. Two more points next,
there's a question here about wedding vows, lots of marriages,
(45:01):
short ones. This depends on numerical deffait. Despite the falling
of religious barriers against divorce and the rise of the prenup,
the mean is still around just one point two to
one point three marriages per American and the number of
men who marry more than once is only about fifteen percent.
But Trump's marriage is still total only three and their
(45:23):
lengths fourteen six and now nearly twenty one years are
hardly in the annulled within thirty two hours range I
mentioned earlier. So no points here. Okay, once we again,
we swing, we swing back to youth. Was the guy
or gal ever a juvenile delinquent? Now not every student
(45:46):
at Trump's high priced alma mater, New York Military Academy NIMA,
as we used to call it when I was in
high school and our teams played theirs, was automatically the
son of rich parents who had been afforded the choice,
not offered their less affluent fellowed troubled kids military school
or reform school. That would be a cliche, but the
(46:08):
one on the record, first hand assessment we have of
Trump as child cuts through cliches and reputations. Quote. He
was a pretty rough fellow when he was small, said
Donald Trump's father, explaining why he had to pull him
out of a traditional prep school in their native Queen's
and ship him away to NIMA. There are plenty of
(46:29):
classmates at that military boarding school who painted picture of
a kid always throwing hands. On June twenty third, twenty sixteen,
the Washington Post profiled Trump as NIMA inmate quote struck
with a broomstick during a fight. He tried to push
a fellow cadet out the second floor window, only to
be thwarted when two other students intervened. The paper also
(46:54):
quoted one of his pre NEMA teachers quote, he would
sit with his arms folded with this look on his face.
I use the word surly, almost daring you to say
one thing or another that wouldn't settle with him. The
post quotes a younger neighbor named Dennis Burnham. Once, when
she left Dennis in a playpen in a backyard adjoining
(47:16):
the Trump's property, Martha Burnham returned to find Donald throwing
rocks at her son. She saw Donald standing at the fence,
Dennis Burnham said, using the playpen for target practice. This
is the sort of stuff that would make a true
bully flinch. Plus, we have the boast from little Donnie
(47:38):
Trump at about seven, blackening the eye of an adult.
Do we have records of the police being called? No,
nor does the category heading ask for them. And that
applies to the next question too. Has there been revocation
of conditional release? The what now? Revocation of conditional release? Now,
(47:58):
don't be worried if this confuses you, Your confusion only
means you are not a parole officer. This is legally
go for getting your parole revoked or your probation converted
into jail time because you were just caught doing that
illegal thing that had gotten you in trouble in the
first place. It is very specifically a criminal record issue.
(48:19):
It's tempting, based on what's happened since he left office
the first time, to give him a point here, but
I'm going to do it because that's not what the
record says at the moment. We'll revisit this in twenty
twenty nine if there is a twenty twenty nine. Finally,
is there true criminality and is it multifaceted? Not just
(48:43):
the same crime over and over again as in the
previous question, but lots of different kinds of crimes. The
psychological professional and I got into a big debate about
this one. She argued that criminal is not necessarily meant
literally here that if you scammed charities, stole money from
grandmothers via a phony university, and directed about twenty percent
(49:06):
of yourr own campaigns, monthly spending towards companies you own,
and the reimbursement for travel by your kids, it all qualified.
My point was that the word criminal is used, not dishonest,
not unethical, not nefarious, capital c criminal and the purp
walk or multimillion dollar fine in restitution, which that implies,
(49:29):
not that that couldn't have been the end result from
Trump you and then came you know his presidency and
stealing all those you know, espionage kind of document stuffs,
and the Egene Carol case and the other Egene Carol
(49:49):
case and January sixth and all the convictions, and and
this just proves, take heart, young man, no matter how
old you are, you still can get crazier. Give them
the two points for a final score of thirty three.
So there you have it. Trump peters out towards the
(50:14):
end there, but with thirty points being the marker at
which professionals could present a diagnosis of psychopathy your psychopath,
the implications are clear. Our Trumper's new clothes media rightly
sees the latest Trump event, whatever it is this time,
as one of the most unbelievable developments in American political history.
(50:34):
But the simple mechanics of following, reporting, and writing the
proverbial new high in low every single day means that
they could be missing one overriding truth about the mental
health of the most remarkable presidential candidate ever. In short,
our amateurs exercise with the very professional hair psychopathy checklist
(50:56):
suggests that if you were betting on it, you'd probably
want to bet that Donald Trump couldn't pass a sanity
to time open book. Now, having slogged through this inventory
of the Citizen Kane storage unit of bizarre presidential candidate conduct,
(51:18):
go look at social media because in the time it
has taken you to listen to this podcast, even if,
as Congresswoman Dean says, the president is unwell, He's probably
just done something new to raise his score, hasn't he.
(51:55):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schaneil, our
musical directors of Countdown. It was produced by Tko Brothers.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mister
Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy musical
comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
(52:16):
The Elderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren
Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Is the sports music. Other
music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
The Test is copyrighted by the people from the Test.
The article some of that's mine, some of that belongs
to Vanity Fair. Whatever they want ten dollars. I'll send
(52:37):
them ten dollars. Everything else was, as always, my fault.
That's countdown for today, Day two hundred and forty six
of America held hostage, just two hundred and seventeen days
until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame
brain term. Unless he is removed sooner by MAGA and
Jeffrey Epstein, or the pavement on his hand, or a
stuck escalator, or the psychopathy test or tail and Hall,
(53:00):
or the president is unwell. The next scheduled count on
is Monday till then. I'm Keith Ulreman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Alreman is a production
(53:30):
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Quote
the President is unhinged, he is unwell. The president is unwell.
(00:32):
Representative Madeline Dean of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, with perhaps the
most important eleven words in the past decade, perhaps the
most important eleven words in the history of this country,
certainly the most important eleven words for the future of
this country, if any the president is unwell. We have
at least one, probably two presidential health crises in full
(00:55):
flower at the same time right now, and as near
as I can tell, only Representative Dean is talking about them.
Representative Dean and Governor Pritzker of Illinois, anyway, whose diagnosis
was sixteen words long, and his was just as important quote,
there is something genuinely wrong with this man, and the
twenty fifth Amendment ought to be invoked. The two crises
(01:20):
are obvious. At his insane speech to the General's Tuesday,
Trump sounded as if his charger had been left unplugged
for three weeks. His voice was husky, indistinct, words slurred
and slowed and trailing off, and what he did say
made next to no sense. Pritzker suggests dementia, which could
(01:42):
explain both the rapidly declining mental capacity and the audible collapse,
and why Trump was invisible yesterday and why he had
to send JV Vance to try to and fail to
bully the White House Press Corps on day one of
the government shutdown that Trump orchestrated. Where the hell was he?
It would all also explain that missy week around Labor
(02:05):
Day and the Cabinet meeting, the last televised cabinet meeting,
in which his departmental slaves shoveled twice as much laudatory
bullshit as usual as if it were a going away
roast for Trump. Maybe it was the President is unwell.
Congress Woman Dean did not just say that. She said
(02:27):
it directly to one of Trump's most shameless political prostitutes,
speaker Mike Johnson. She said it with video rolling down
a house corridor. The audio fights for your attention, but
it's there. She said it. She said it, Thank God.
Some Democrats said it to some Republican seriously and carrying
(02:48):
enough weight to convey the risk the nation. Not just
the Democrats, not just the immigrants, not just the people
who are not in on Trump's corruption, not just the
blue states the risk the nation is at because the
president is unwell. Was recorded from Afar, and the audio
hurts your ear and it hurts your brain, but the
(03:11):
words are there. Here is just a few seconds of them,
plus the remarks from Pritzker. The president is unwell, Hockey.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And she.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Is dispriss.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Is it racist?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
You put us a rare up on the blacks, the
leader of the House. You don't see that as racist.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Appears that Donald Trump not only has dementia set in,
but he's copying tactics of Vladimir Putin, sending troops into cities,
thinking that that's some sort of proving ground for war,
or that indeed there's some sort of internal war.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Going on in the United States. It is just frankly inane,
and I'm concerned for his health. There is something genuinely
wrong with this man, and the twenty fifth Amendment ought
to be invoked.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The rest of the tape is only intermittently clear. Representative
Dean was confronting Speaker Johnson about Trump's deranged and rambling
speech to the generals summoned to Virginia by the equally
unwell Secretary of Defense, Pete brill cream hegseeth quote the
president is unhinged, he is unwell, and later from the congresswoman,
(04:38):
oh my god, that performance in front of the generals.
The president is unwell. He said the military should use
American cities as training grounds. He said America is under
invasion from within. He appeared on the stage in Quatico
Tuesday morning, and he was expecting applause and didn't know
what to do when he didn't get it, and he
then begged for it because the president is unwell. And
(05:02):
Congresswoman Dean bless Her set it out loud, said it
without spin, said it without any of the soul sucking
rehearsed add ons like and he should be focused on
helping Americans, just saying it, just saying in essence, no, no, no, no.
The rest of this is trivia. The president is unhinged,
(05:24):
the president is unwell, yet the president is still in
charge and the speaker, he answered by telling the congresswoman
he didn't see Trump unravel in front of the generals,
which could be true, but I bet it's not what
he told Trump. Johnson also said the AI racist video
of Schumer and Jeffries was just a joke and asked
(05:46):
Dean if it really was racist, which could be true,
but I bet that's not what he told himself. Once
you live one line, Mike Johnson, the next fifty thousand
are easy. The President also posted a nauseating, racist, demeaning
AI video. It had a fake Chuck Schumer and a
fake Akeem Jeffries, and the fake Akeem Jeffries had a
(06:07):
sombrero and what is commonly referred to as a mustache,
an exaggerated mustache added onto his head. Trump did this
after having posted a nauseating, deceptive, dangerous AI video with
a fake Fox News report supposedly narrated by his own
daughter in law, in which he essentially promised Americans immortality
(06:28):
in special hospital beds that don't actually exist. Early yesterday afternoon,
his ren Field. In this equation, Vance mocked those who
called the racist video you know racist, said he didn't
understand why a black man would find a fabricated video
of himself wearing a sombrero racist. Late yesterday afternoon, someone
(06:50):
acting in Trump's name made sure we all got the
point that the Trump White House is this close to
having Press Secretary Levitt or somebody else wear blackface. It
began to play Trump's sombrero video on a loop on
monitors in the White House Press briefing room. In other words,
Trump did just about the usual number of insane things,
(07:13):
or others did them on his behalf. That a functioning
but still insane man will do every day as he's
done for most of the last ten years. Only these
days have been different, and that day was totally different.
It was only a start, but it was a start.
(07:33):
Dean said something, Pritzker said something. What it could mean
in a moment, what it has meant in the last decade,
in a moment, first those receipts from Quantico, and then
one more time from Representative Dean.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
I've never walked into a room so silent before. This
is very don't left on't lif if you're not allowed
to do that, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I just have a good time. And if you want
to applaud, you applugg.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
And if you want to do anything you want, you
can do anything you want. And if you don't like
what I'm saying, you can leave the room. Of course,
there goes your rank, there goes your future. And I
told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities
as training grounds for our military National Guard, but military
because we're going into Chicago versus that's a big city
(08:19):
with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor, stupid. They threw him
out of his family business. He was so stupid, I
know the family. He becomes governor, he's got money, not
money that he made, but he ran for governor won,
and now he criticizes us all the time. And last
month I signed an executive order to provide training for
(08:40):
a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances.
And this is going to be a big thing for
the people in this room because it's the enemy from
within and we have to handle it before it gets
out of control. It won't get out of control, and
this is going to be a major part for some
of the people in this room. That's a war too,
it's a war from within.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
The president is unwell. I have literally grown old insisting
the president is unwell. When I started, he wasn't even president.
I have been the boy who cried wolf because there
has been a wolf at the door since twenty fifteen,
(09:25):
and it's Trump's mental instability, and it has been getting worse,
which is pretty bad because it started at narcissism and
self obsession and not really human like. And now now
it's ten years later, plus whatever is physically wrong with him,
whatever that is, seems to be on the way to
its victory. And you are not hearing about this on
(09:49):
the news, right wing news understandably, why would they want
to talk about this, But for the rest of it,
you're not hearing about it because the entirety of the
mainstream political media in this country is still equipped only
to cover about eight kinds of stories, and a desperately
mentally ill or desperately physically ill president is not one
(10:12):
of those eight kinds of stories. Government shutdowns, about which
the media always always always looks into the wrong end
of the telescope, are one of the eight. That one
of eight or so is also about how many American
citizens have even the slightest awareness of or interest in
a shutdown, certainly in its first week. That's just a coincidence.
(10:36):
I can't speak to what's wrong with Donald Trump physically,
but it's not good. And you and I have already
gone through the clues that have escaped from the pavement,
like gray skin on the hand that he covers up
with the other hand, whenever he can, to the makeup
atop the plastic wrap used on that hand, to the
(10:57):
often indistinct and slurring voice, the slurred words, the eyes
for some reason reduced to slit. Yes, but if we
all live through this, the subject that will surprise historians
the most is for how long it was clear this
man was mentally incompetent and nobody did anything about it. Ordinarily,
(11:18):
I would say my conscience was clear about this because
I first brought it up in June of twenty sixteen
on the Chelsea Handler Show on Netflix. Yes there was one,
look it up. Then the next month Vanity Fair published
a piece I did called could Trump Pass a Sanity Test?
And we made a video of it. Apparently I didn't
(11:39):
talk loud enough on the Chelsea Handler Show, or the
article wasn't long enough, or we didn't make enough videos.
I'm going to tank the could Trump pass a Sanity
Test article and read it again, now virtually unchanged with
a few notes, because it's all still true, only way worse.
(11:59):
But it was all there when this article came out
one hundred and eleven months ago, one hundred and eleven
could Trump Pass a Sanity Test? July twenty first two
thy sixteen short answer, probably not. First, several important caveats.
(12:27):
There is little worse and nothing cheesier than questioning the
psychological stability of a public figure, especially a candidate for president,
even in this case, except that, in his year of campaigning,
Donald Trump has called Lindsey Graham a nut job, Glen
Beck a real nut job, and Bernie Sanders a wacko.
(12:47):
Trump has insisted Ben Carson's got pathological disease, and asked
about Barack Obama is our president insane? He called Ted
Cruz unstable, unhinged, a little bit of a maniac, and
crazy or very dishonest. He also called the entire cnb
C channel crazy. He called Megan Kelly crazy at least
(13:09):
six times. Respectful reticence about aspersions and cliches and mental
health questions in a time in which mocking was seemingly
slowly maturing into concern that died a long time ago
in this presidential cycle of twenty sixteen, and it died
at Donald Trump's hands. Moreover, if the question is asked
(13:32):
seriously and not gratuitously, just the examination might explain how
Trump has seemingly survived dozens of moments that might each
have been campaign enders for almost anybody else. Why have
we not asked if a given presidential candidate might be
disqualified from office due to psychological reasons? Because we not
(13:53):
only can't see this forest for the trees, but each
time we try, there are even more trees blocking our view.
In the twenty four hour news cycle, each successive John
Yerkey's Iceland moment is not registered cumulatively. It merely supplants
the one from last week or yesterday this morning. This
(14:16):
could also explain Trump's seeming imperviousness to his own mind
bending campaign. Surely it must be exhausting to attack the
Pope February eighteenth attack, President Clinton, May eighteenth, attack, John
McCain July eighteenth, attack, Mexicans June sixteenth, attack Muslims December
(14:36):
eighth attack, candidates who use a teleprompter May twenty sixth,
just before you give a speech using a teleprompter, May
twenty sixth. It's got to be exhausting, unless, as the
old joke goes, no pain no gain, also no brain,
no pain anyway. The actual sanity test I found for
(15:00):
this article is called, by delicious coincidence, the hair psychopathy
checklist revised, introduced by a Canadian criminal psychologist named Robert D.
Hare in nineteen eighty, and that's Hare. It's still in
use in some quarters, though with ever more diffuse and
specific mental health diagnoses. It is not without its critics, however,
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as a practicing therapist who walked me through it agreed,
it serves as a kind of triage device to separate
the injured from the tripping from the psychopathic. And about
that word, we seem to have completely muddled up sociopath
and psychopath. Sociopath think Ted Kaczynski, the unibomber, living out
(15:48):
there and his shack in the woods, feeling nothing for
other humans and unable to interact with them, literally mailing
it in. Psychopath think Ted Bundy feeling nothing for other humans,
but having long ago learned how to expertly mimic relationships
by being whatever he needed to be to whomever he
(16:11):
needed to use, killing at least thirty women serving as
his own counsel, and cross examining a female witness, proposing
marriage to her while she was on the stand, and
getting her to say yes. For each of the twenty
items on the hair psychopathy checklist, you're supposed to assign
the subject a zero, one point or two. The highest
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and most dangerous score is thus forty. In the United States,
the accepted minimum score for possible psychopathy meaning you might
be nuts, is thirty. So those are the rules. Let's
play the freud. The test begins with an assessment of
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charm that is superficial, forced charm, faked charm? May I
dare say this Trump charm? I had interviewed Donald Trump
as long ago as nineteen eighty three, and I always
thought he was a horse's ass. But after running into
him when we both worked at NBC, and then in
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the lobby of one of his apartment buildings in which
I lived, I was stunned to encounter a quiet, succinct,
seemingly sincere co worker and in essence landlord. In one role,
he described himself as an anti Bush pro Obama liberal.
In the other, he urged me to contact him personally
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with any problems or suggestions about the building in which
I lived. And then he got on the campaign stage,
and boom, he was America's newest Mussolini impersonator. For a
long while, I was flummoxed as to which of these
truly mutually exclusive personalities was the act. Then I was
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reminded that it didn't really matter, which that having multiple
personalities should by itself preclude one from having access to
multiple nuclear warheads. I was explaining this on Bill Maher's
show in November twenty fifteen when mar suddenly got so
(18:21):
g whiz that I almost didn't recognize him. Me too,
he exclaimed boyishly. Mar cynical to such a degree that
it makes me seem as earnestly faithful as a pope,
said He had just been as convinced as I was,
and thus just as stunned by this hydra of Trumpian
personas he'd always been nice to me. I can easily
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imagine myself being taken in by a con artist like
Donald Trump. I mean, Trump wrote me a fan letter once.
But Mar mar who called me a corporate sellout in
nineteen seventy eight, when I had to that point earned
about two hundred dollars from all the corporations in the
world combined. He fooled Bill Maher. So if you're giving
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out points about fake charm, Trump gets both of them.
The next topic was an excessive sense of self worth
no kidding, I feel like a supermodel, he said on
June eighteenth, twenty sixteen, in Phoenix. Except like Times ten,
It's true, I'm a supermodel. I'm on the cover of
these magazines. I'm on the cover of the biggest magazines.
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This was stated by the first Oompealoopa American to run
for national office. He is bright orange. He is an
old man, affecting a hair color and style that would
have been rejected by the eighties synth pop group A
flock of seagulls. I served with supermodels. I knew supermodels.
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Supermodels were friends of mine. Donald, You're no supermodel, but
that is two more points for you. The test moves
on to ask if the subject can't mentally sit still,
must he always try to make things happen good, bad,
or otherwise? Not easily bored, but almost impossible to focus?
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Acknowledging that a lot of us get a point or
two here, I certainly do not. All of those job
changes of mine were their fault. Let me first quote
the introduction from Trump's think like a billionaire quote, don't
take vacations. What's the point? Have a short attention span?
Most successful people have very short attention spans. It has
a lot to do with imagination. Here are some of
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the wide ranging businesses Trump's short attention span has dragged
him and the world into real estate, vitamins, rentals, books, condos,
trucolate bars, golf courses, pro football, beauty pageants, stakes, board games,
television hosting, bottled water, universities, men's wear, professional wrestling, mortgages, airlines, fragrances,
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coffee restaurants, energy drinks, vodka, search, engines, your analysis, and
of course, bicycle racing. Bicycle racing the Tour de Trump,
in which I noted at the time, contestants raced three
hundred laps around his ego as a twenty twenty five aside.
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Can we add crypto and flags and bibles and merch
and twenty sixteen hats and twenty twenty hats and twenty
twenty eight hats and twenty and thirty two hats and
mugshot merch, oh and influenced pedling and two more points?
The test now gets heavy? Is there lying involved? Again?
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To June eighteenth, twenty sixteen, at the Woodlands in Texas
after the horrible Pulse Club shooting. Quote, if some of
those wonderful people had guns strapped right here right to
their waist or right to their ankle, and this son
of a bitch comes out and starts shooting, and one
of the people in that room happen to have it
and goes boom. You know what. That would have been
a beautiful, beautiful site, folks. That would have been a beautiful,
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beautiful sight. June twenty two days later on Twitter, when
I said that if within the Orlando club you had
some people with guns, I was obviously talking about additional
guards or employees. Can I stop here or should I
walk you through the hot and cold running lies? Alternating
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with the admissions of the Times in the nineties, he
pretended to be his own spokesman, John Miller and John
barn Or say virtually every other thing he said since
this article came out nine years ago. Another two points
on your scoreboard, please. The test then asks if the
patient is manipulative or cons people you think I'll add
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today from the perspective of twenty twenty five, who should
we ask to write the guest essay on this question? Here?
Mike Pence, maybe Trump's own daughter Ivanka. I'm giving another
two points here. Next, we remove to the absence of
any sense of guilt or regret. Ask about his faith
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at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa by the
moderator Frank Lunce in July twenty fifteen, Trump said, people
are so shocked when they find out I am Protestant,
I am Presbyterian, and I go to church and I
love God and I love my church. Lunce then followed
up with the soft fall of literally biblical proportions. Whether
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Trump has ever asked God for forgiveness for his own
actions quote, I'm not sure I have. I just go
on and try to do a better job from there.
I don't think so. I think if I do something wrong,
I think I just try and make it right. I
don't bring God into that picture. I don't. Trump then
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explained that Holy can Union sufficed. Quote when I drink
my little wine, which is about the only wine I drink,
and have my little cracker, I guess that is a
form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as
often as possible because I feel cleansed. I think in
terms of let's go on and let's make it right
unquote the art of the deal. Indeed, Trump picked up
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this thread with Jake Tapper in January twenty sixteen, Again
the subject was religion. Quote, I like to be good.
I don't like to have to ask for forgiveness. Tapper
then asked about arrival, presumed to be Ted Cruz, who
was conducting field research into the efficacy of questioning Trump's
religious convictions. Quote, he shouldn't be doing that, very unethical.
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Within a few weeks, Trump attacked Cruises religious convictions on
February twelfth. In fact, he tweeted, how can Ted Cruz
be an evangelical Christian when he lies so much and
is so dishonest. Not a week after that, Pope Francis
answered a question about Trump's overall tone quote, A person
who thinks only about building walls wherever they may be,
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and not building bridges is not Christian. Within hours, Trump
slammed the Pope fantasized about an ISIS attack on the
Vatican that only he Trump could stop, and concluded this
remarkable circle of illogic by writing, for a religious leader
to question a person's faith is disgraceful. This is right
after he questioned a person's faith after he twice admitted
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that his faith included the option to not ask forgiveness
and not quote bring God into that picture, and just
four months before he'd go back to this well and
question Hillary Clinton's faith again. That's two more solid points.
The next item had to be explained to me thoroughly
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from my analyst friend. It's the psychological jargon term shallow affect.
In some its tone deafness when it comes to explaining
relationships between people. For instance, if somebody got up on
stage the sake of argument, we'll say it's Billy Joel
with Madison Square Garden, and that person insulted you by
(26:20):
sarcastically dedicating to you his song the Entertainer as a
way of saying you weren't a leader or a politician,
but merely an entertainer. You might take umbrage or at
least recognize the insult, not if you are suffering from
shallow effect. Thank you, Billy Joel, Trump tweeted on May
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twenty seven, twenty sixteen. Many friends just told me you
gave me a very kind shout out at MSG appreciated
love your music. Another example of shallow affect would be
a kind of approach to how people influence each other's
lives that could be diagrammed as event B follows event,
(27:03):
a therefore event a caused event. B If say a
prominent athlete ignored you, or in some other tangential way
interacted with you before failing or being injured, you might
think in passing that you would somehow jinxed him, especially
if you were still nine or ten years old, but
(27:23):
you probably wouldn't publicly claim it, not unless you're suffering
from shallow affect. Quote Derek Jeter had a great career
until three days ago. Trump tweeted on October fifteenth, twenty twelve,
after the baseball player shattered his ankle during a game
when he sold his apartment at Trump World Tower, I
told him not to sell karma. The answer this chain
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letter or many ankles will be broken theme was not
some early passing expression of the now familiar syndrome we
might describe as TWT tweeting, while Trump five days later
quote Derek Jeter broke ankle one day after he sold
his apartment in Trump World Tower, and just to finish
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this off. Another aspect to shallow affect would be an
unwillingness to acknowledge reliance on others. On March sixteenth, twenty sixteen,
Trump was asked about which foreign policy consultancy was speaking
to I'm speaking with myself number one, because I have
a very good brain, he said, apparently seriously, I know
what I'm doing, and I listen to a lot of people.
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I talk to a lot of people, and at the
appropriate time, I'll tell you who the people are. But
my primary consultant is myself, and I have a good
instinct for this stuff. As an aside, is the narrator
anywhere to know? He's off its break. On June twenty fourth,
twenty sixteen, in Scotland, Trump again described his dream consultant,
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saying he spoke to quote foreign policy advisors all the time,
but the advice has to come from me. The advice
has to come from me. The effect is shallow. The
points score is not like that last statement. There's two
of them. Then it's on to lack of empathy. How
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much lack of empathy can you have? June twelfth, twenty sixteen,
hours after the last shots had been fired at the
Pulse Club in Orlando, quote, appreciate the congrats for being
right on radical Islamic terrorism. I don't want congrats. I
want toughness and vigilance. We must be smart. As a reminder,
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you cannot give fifteen hundred points for just one item
on the hair psychopathy checklist, even if that total is
seemingly deserved. Just just two more here, then there's a
lifestyle question. Does the subject of your exam live his
life as you know a parasite? This does not mean,
as I originally thought, living materially off mom and dad
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or others, although that can be a minor component, especially
if dad gave you a million dollar loan own circle
nineteen seventy and you get nine million more from a
bank on the promise of your inheritance, and ultimately you
got about forty million on your father's death, and you
considered all that just a small start in life. No,
it has more to do with taking credit for the
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work of others to the degree of erasing all record
of their contributions and slapping your name on their efforts,
often in transactions in which you are literally renting the
use of your name as a brand and nothing else.
You know, like Trump Pallace, the Tour to Trump, Trump Steaks,
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Trump taj Mahal, Donald Trump, the Fragrance, and of course
Castle Trump you law. And just as in court, a
wife cannot be forced to give evidence of parasitic lifestyle
against her husband, despite Millennia Trump's convention speech fiasco in
twenty sixteen, unless her husband wrote or stole that for her,
remember that where her speech sounded suspiciously like Michelle Obamas.
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Again just two points. The midpoint two point question asks
if the subject had poor behavioral controls, Well, what's your
definition of poor? As a twenty twenty five aside, I'd
like to note the next sentence was written by me
in twenty sixteen. Well, he had poor behavioral controls, but
(31:27):
everybody agrees he's going to dial it all back this
time right after he pivots pivots towards dialing it back,
right Judge Gonzalo Curiel, right, Don King, Joel Austin, Ben Roethlisberger,
Pete Rose, or anybody else who Trump claimed had endorsed
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him when they had not, Or the Hispanic ABC reporter
he called a sleeze, or the losing Republican presidential hopefuls
he mocked in a video the day after he insisted
he was going to unite the Republican Party. So we
are at the halfway mark of this twenty sixteen exam,
and the article I wrote, could Trump pass a sanity test?
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Two points per topic? Thirty or thirty five points is
real trouble. So far he's been graded for a possible
twenty points, and he has twenty points the rest of it.
The next topic is promiscuous sexual behavior. Oh, that's next.
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This is countdown back with the second half of the
July twenty sixteen Vanity Fair article I wrote, can Trump
pass a sanity Test? Where, with the help of a therapist,
I tried to score how nuts he was even then
from afar. All this in light of Congresswoman Dean's pithy
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and quick observation the President is unwell and Governor Pritzker's
invocation of invoking the twenty fifth Amendment to remove him
from office because there's something really wrong with him. Now,
to remind you, you're supposed to give the patient no
points one point or two point per topic. That's it,
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no variations. So far we've done half of the topics,
ten of them, he's gotten twenty points. That's not the
flex that he would think it would be if you
told him to resume with the test. Is the individual
sexually promiscuous? Ahem. When I was a young radio sportscaster.
I was given the great opportunity to interview by telephone
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a famous athlete who had just been suspended from his
sport because he had gone to work for a casino.
The athlete now deceased, but will still use a pseudonym.
We'll call him Jimmy Smith was expecting my call. This
as near as I can remember, it was the transcript
of the start of that call, ring, ring, voice sounding
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kind of like Hattie McDaniel, Academy Award winning actress from
Gone with the Wind. Mister Smith's residence. Me uh hi.
Milton Richmond from UPI gave me mister Smith's number and
said he would be willing to give me a brief interview.
May I speak with him? Please? Voice sounding kind of
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like Hattie McDaniel, the Academy Award winning actress from Gone
with the Wind, who's calling please me? My name is
Keith Olderman from UPI Radio. Jimmy Smith. This is Jimmy.
As silly as the story of the whole fake Trump
spokesman was. Of course he has invisible friends. Of course
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they're pr flax. Lost in the laughter were three important details. Firstly,
as my conversation with Jimmy Smith and his imaginary housekeeper
suggests people do do this, but secondly, when they do it,
they usually try to disguise their own voice. Thirdly, rarely
do they assume other identities in order to provide the
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second component to what we categorize as promiscuity, besides multiple
partners boasting about it. Nineteen ninety one, John Miller to
sue carswell than of people as of twenty and fifteen
with Vanity Fair, for whom I wrote this article. Quote,
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He's meaning Trump, somebody that has a lot of options,
and frankly he gets called by everybody. He gets called
by everybody in the book. In terms of women, I
mean they call, They just call. He's living with Marla
and he's got three other girlfriends. Unquote Trump in his
own voice, pretending to be somebody else, talking about Trump
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and the women he betted. That'll be two more points. Next,
the test asks if there were conduct problems early in
the subject's life. When I was a kid four or five,
I twice hit a friend of mine in the back
of the head with a metal toy. I remember shock blood,
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no stitches, And then a series of family meetings we
talked the folks got some professional advice. They got me
into organized sports and exercise, and I quickly realized that
just because I was frustrated with somebody that was not
a good reason to hit them, regardless. When I had
my analyst friend run the hair psychopathy checklist on me,
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I insisted she give me a point on this because
hitting a kid in the back of the head with
a toy fire engine and later a magnet was at
minimum an indicator of the potential for early behavior problems.
So if you're given me a point for this, how
many points would you give a child who attacked one
of his own teachers. Quote I actually gave a teacher
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a black eye, Trump wrote in the Art of the
Deal in nineteen eighty seven, barely concealing his retroactively. He
placed the time of the assault as the second grade,
likely making him seven years old. Quote. I punched my
music teacher because I didn't think he knew anything about music,
and I almost got expelled. What kind of kid punches
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an adult in the face? I mean, we hear about
punching up, but think back to being that age seven.
The one universal I can recall was that no seven
year old ever dreamt of trying to physically take on
an adult, for the simple and unavoidable reason that virtually
(37:52):
any adult was several times your own weight. If you
picked the wrong one, they might do more than just
defend themselves. Even knocking an adult down could be an
exercise in self destruction if he fell on you. The
most reality challenged of all of my young classmates the
kid who ran headfirst into the side of a moving
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school bus for reasons that still remain unclear ten presidents later.
He would never have hit an adult. There is a
second version of the same story from a Trump biographer.
He did indeed give the teacher a black eye, but
not with a punch. He threw an eraser at him
and hit him just right, because that's way better. Regardless,
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the version Trump tells is of the four foot tall
edition of himself punching what was at least a five
foot tall adult in the eye hard enough to give
the man a shiner. The only argument against calling this
early behavior problems is that the first word implies that
it stopped at some point two more points. The tests
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you will have noticed bounces around a bit from topic
to topic. From early behavior, we switch back to long
term goals? Does the patient lack them? So far, mister
Trump is theoretically aced are exam but reality now invades
our idyllic scene. There could be a thousand things psychologically
wrong with the process by which Trump ends up with
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a low score on this one. In the big picture,
you would never have thought Mussolini was less crazy just
because he left Italy for Switzerland in nineteen oh two
in part to avoid military service, and exactly twenty years
later Mussolini became head of the Italian state and often
dressed up in his military uniform. But tests are tests,
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There are rules here. And if you say this guy
Trump so lacks realistic long term goals that he thinks
he can become president and he winds up president twice,
the long term goals turned out to be not that unrealistic.
Stick huh. As I look back at this article from
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twenty twenty five, I desperately want to give Trump a
point on this one here, because once again he boasts
about having the very thing that psychology says is a
warning sign. Except you know, he was right he became president.
In the preface to Think like a Billionaire, Trump quotes
the author Richard Konniff quote. Almost all successful alpha personalities
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display a single minded determination to impose their vision on
the world and irrational belief in unreasonable goals, bordering sometimes
on lunacy. And it worked for him. So on this one, Trump,
you'll get nothing and you'll like it. He could have
(40:56):
twenty six points. He only has twenty four. Next is
the patient impulsive. In March twenty sixteen, writing in Psychology Today,
doctor Glenn Geher offered a different definition of impulsiveness. It's
not necessarily the same as rashness or its positive twin
quick thinking. True impulsiveness usually leaves fingerprints of edgy, though
(41:17):
not automatically pernicious behavior. Rather, it makes one do these
things in the wrong place at the wrong time, like
as doctor Geher was analyzing discussing the size of your
penis during a presidential debate. He didn't include the other
examples where the context turns that behavior or that language
(41:41):
from borderline to impulsive. You might appropriately bring up that
topic in bed, or at a bar, or even at
your tailor's, but it's like saying a female presidential candidate
had been schlonged in a primary, like criticizing the face
of one of your female rivals during a speech like
(42:01):
crudely referring to a network television figures menstruation while on
a rival television network back to two points out of two.
Here down the stretch we come. This is another seemingly
easy item that is actually difficult to nail to the wall.
What is irresponsibility? Not crediting John McCain's heroism because he
(42:26):
got captured when you yourself avoided the military draft and
service four maybe five times? Is irresponsibility shown by taking
a position on guns in nightclubs that's so extreme that
the president and legislative director of the National Goddamned Rifle
Association condemned. It is irresponsibility at least to the millions
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of lost souls who actually thought you'd make a great
American president rather than merely the last American president. Is
irresponsibility to even make a joke if it was a
joke that if you were offered five billion dollars to
drop out quote, I guess we'd have to think about it.
Is the word more applicable or less applicable if it
comes out the next day that during May your campaign
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spent more than twice as much at business as you
own than it did on payroll. The problem with this
heading is that so much of what fits vaguely into irresponsibility, promiscuity, bankruptcy,
punching out your teacher fits like jigsaw pieces into the
other categories in this test. That doesn't mean the examples
(43:30):
are ineligible, just imprecise, but it does mean we have
to score conservatively. So let's give him one of the
two points. We are asked next to assess whether the
patient accepts responsibility for their own actions. Again, you cannot
give more than two points in any category. Both of
(43:53):
my favorite examples here involve interviews with the Washington Post.
Remember the Washington Post. On May twenty fourth, twenty sixteen,
Trump was caught having not yet donated the money from
the purported veterans fundraiser he staged as counter programming to
the January Republican debate that he bailed out of. The
Post quoted his remarks at the fundraiser, which was televised nationally.
(44:16):
We just cracked six million dollars, right, six million? Trump
replied to them, I didn't say six. The somewhat startled
Post staffer said it was on tape. Play it for me,
Trump replied, because I'd like to hear it, the Post reported.
Trump then manipulated the conversation to another topic, precluding the
playing of the video. Eleven days later, the tape of
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him speaking in his own voice but pretending to be
his spokesman John Miller was revealed when during a phone interview,
a Post reporter brought up that proof the John Miller tape,
Trump simply hung up the phone. Two more points next,
there's a question here about wedding vows, lots of marriages,
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short ones. This depends on numerical deffait. Despite the falling
of religious barriers against divorce and the rise of the prenup,
the mean is still around just one point two to
one point three marriages per American and the number of
men who marry more than once is only about fifteen percent.
But Trump's marriage is still total only three and their
(45:23):
lengths fourteen six and now nearly twenty one years are
hardly in the annulled within thirty two hours range I
mentioned earlier. So no points here. Okay, once we again,
we swing, we swing back to youth. Was the guy
or gal ever a juvenile delinquent? Now not every student
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at Trump's high priced alma mater, New York Military Academy NIMA,
as we used to call it when I was in
high school and our teams played theirs, was automatically the
son of rich parents who had been afforded the choice,
not offered their less affluent fellowed troubled kids military school
or reform school. That would be a cliche, but the
(46:08):
one on the record, first hand assessment we have of
Trump as child cuts through cliches and reputations. Quote. He
was a pretty rough fellow when he was small, said
Donald Trump's father, explaining why he had to pull him
out of a traditional prep school in their native Queen's
and ship him away to NIMA. There are plenty of
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classmates at that military boarding school who painted picture of
a kid always throwing hands. On June twenty third, twenty sixteen,
the Washington Post profiled Trump as NIMA inmate quote struck
with a broomstick during a fight. He tried to push
a fellow cadet out the second floor window, only to
be thwarted when two other students intervened. The paper also
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quoted one of his pre NEMA teachers quote, he would
sit with his arms folded with this look on his face.
I use the word surly, almost daring you to say
one thing or another that wouldn't settle with him. The
post quotes a younger neighbor named Dennis Burnham. Once, when
she left Dennis in a playpen in a backyard adjoining
(47:16):
the Trump's property, Martha Burnham returned to find Donald throwing
rocks at her son. She saw Donald standing at the fence,
Dennis Burnham said, using the playpen for target practice. This
is the sort of stuff that would make a true
bully flinch. Plus, we have the boast from little Donnie
(47:38):
Trump at about seven, blackening the eye of an adult.
Do we have records of the police being called? No,
nor does the category heading ask for them. And that
applies to the next question too. Has there been revocation
of conditional release? The what now? Revocation of conditional release? Now,
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don't be worried if this confuses you, Your confusion only
means you are not a parole officer. This is legally
go for getting your parole revoked or your probation converted
into jail time because you were just caught doing that
illegal thing that had gotten you in trouble in the
first place. It is very specifically a criminal record issue.
(48:19):
It's tempting, based on what's happened since he left office
the first time, to give him a point here, but
I'm going to do it because that's not what the
record says at the moment. We'll revisit this in twenty
twenty nine if there is a twenty twenty nine. Finally,
is there true criminality and is it multifaceted? Not just
(48:43):
the same crime over and over again as in the
previous question, but lots of different kinds of crimes. The
psychological professional and I got into a big debate about
this one. She argued that criminal is not necessarily meant
literally here that if you scammed charities, stole money from
grandmothers via a phony university, and directed about twenty percent
(49:06):
of yourr own campaigns, monthly spending towards companies you own,
and the reimbursement for travel by your kids, it all qualified.
My point was that the word criminal is used, not dishonest,
not unethical, not nefarious, capital c criminal and the purp
walk or multimillion dollar fine in restitution, which that implies,
(49:29):
not that that couldn't have been the end result from
Trump you and then came you know his presidency and
stealing all those you know, espionage kind of document stuffs,
and the Egene Carol case and the other Egene Carol
(49:49):
case and January sixth and all the convictions, and and
this just proves, take heart, young man, no matter how
old you are, you still can get crazier. Give them
the two points for a final score of thirty three.
So there you have it. Trump peters out towards the
(50:14):
end there, but with thirty points being the marker at
which professionals could present a diagnosis of psychopathy your psychopath,
the implications are clear. Our Trumper's new clothes media rightly
sees the latest Trump event, whatever it is this time,
as one of the most unbelievable developments in American political history.
(50:34):
But the simple mechanics of following, reporting, and writing the
proverbial new high in low every single day means that
they could be missing one overriding truth about the mental
health of the most remarkable presidential candidate ever. In short,
our amateurs exercise with the very professional hair psychopathy checklist
(50:56):
suggests that if you were betting on it, you'd probably
want to bet that Donald Trump couldn't pass a sanity
to time open book. Now, having slogged through this inventory
of the Citizen Kane storage unit of bizarre presidential candidate conduct,
(51:18):
go look at social media because in the time it
has taken you to listen to this podcast, even if,
as Congresswoman Dean says, the president is unwell, He's probably
just done something new to raise his score, hasn't he.
(51:55):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schaneil, our
musical directors of Countdown. It was produced by Tko Brothers.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mister
Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy musical
comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
(52:16):
The Elderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren
Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Is the sports music. Other
music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
The Test is copyrighted by the people from the Test.
The article some of that's mine, some of that belongs
to Vanity Fair. Whatever they want ten dollars. I'll send
(52:37):
them ten dollars. Everything else was, as always, my fault.
That's countdown for today, Day two hundred and forty six
of America held hostage, just two hundred and seventeen days
until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame
brain term. Unless he is removed sooner by MAGA and
Jeffrey Epstein, or the pavement on his hand, or a
stuck escalator, or the psychopathy test or tail and Hall,
(53:00):
or the president is unwell. The next scheduled count on
is Monday till then. I'm Keith Ulreman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Alreman is a production
(53:30):
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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