A short while into Trump’s first presidency, Tony Schwartz wrote:
Why does President Trump behave in the dangerous and seemingly self-destructive ways he does?
Three decades ago, I spent nearly a year hanging around Trump to write his first book, The Art of the Deal, and got to know him very well. I spent hundreds of hours listening to him, watching him in action, and interviewing him about his life. To me, none of what he has said or done over the past four months as president comes as a surprise. The way he has behaved over the past two weeks—firing FBI director James B. Comey, undercutting his own aides as they tried to explain the decision, disclosing sensitive information to Russian officials, and railing about it all on Twitter—is also entirely predictable.
Early on, I recognized that Trump’s sense of self-worth is forever at risk. When he feels aggrieved, he reacts impulsively and defensively, constructing a self-justifying story that doesn’t depend on facts and always directs the blame to others.
Tony Schwartz co-wrote The Art of the Deal with Trump, (that is to say, Schwartz was responsible for the vast majority of it) and is therefore in a unique position to understand the President’s behavior. He provided an insightful article that told us about the REAL Trump, not the Trump that Trump likes to project.
The reason that Trump is so self-obsessed is because he lacks any inner life. He’s an empty vessel, a shallow, hollow person who’s never spent much time reflecting upon himself, and the little reflection that he has done, he has never liked what he saw. So instead, he projected.
Empathy is the antithesis of narcissism. Narcissists project themselves onto the entire world. Everything that they see, every action they take, is based on how it makes them feel. They are the center of the universe. The rest of the world exists solely to serve their needs.
A narcissist cultivates an image of themselves that is completely divorced from reality, and they want people to see this image, not the real person behind it. They need praise and validation to support the illusion, and so they are easily angered if anyone ever disagrees with or criticizes them. There is no middle ground – either you agree with them whole-heartedly, or you’re stupid or inconsiderate or deliberately targeting them. They make you feel guilty for setting reasonable boundaries. That’s very much what the MAGA Cult is all about – making you feel wrong for having a SANE opinion.
To survive, I concluded from our conversations, Trump felt compelled to go to war with the world. It was a binary, zero-sum choice for him: You either dominated or you submitted. You either created and exploited fear, or you succumbed to it—as he thought his older brother had. This narrow, defensive outlook took hold at a very early age, and it never evolved. “When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now,” he told a recent biographer, “I’m basically the same.” His development essentially ended in early childhood.
Trump never needed to develop beyond childhood because he adopted narcissistic tendencies, which are all about denying reality rather than accepting it. He never had to face up to anything in life. He was never held accountable for anything.
Instead, Trump grew up fighting for his life and taking no prisoners. In countless conversations, he made clear to me that he treated every encounter as a contest he had to win, because the only other option from his perspective was to lose, and that was the equivalent of obliteration. Many of the deals in The Art of the Deal were massive failures—among them the casinos he owned and the launch of a league to rival the National Football League—but Trump had me describe each of them as a huge success.
It’s no surprise that Trump has such a narrow and childish perspective. As a narcissist, he relates to people only one of two ways: either you’re a supporter and you tell him how great he is, or you’re an enemy and he treats you like an adversary, someone to be overcome. There’s NO capacity for self-reflection or honestly AT ALL. He’s allergic to truth.
I never sensed from Trump any guilt or contrition about anything he’d done, and he certainly never shared any misgivings publicly. From his perspective, he operated in a jungle full of predators who were forever out to get him, and he did what he must to survive.
The fundamental weakness of a narcissist’s position is that his “worldview” is total fiction. It’s a personality armor designed to hide the fact that they have the emotional depth of a pothole, a lack of humanity, a crippling sense of emptiness. So, as an adult, when life challenges them – which it always does – it’s totally baffling and incomprehensible, because the universe is supposed to cater to THEM. Why wouldn’t it? It must be maliciously and unfairly targeting them.
The self-centered, childish inner nature of Trump is perfectly compatible with a toxic, immature politics. Whenever someone criticizes Trump or even mentions reality, they’re immediately jettisoned. The Trump administration never responds honestly to honest questions, never dignifies its people with a straight answer. It’s an extension of Trump’s narcissism and aped by everyone in it – the cult moves in lock-step. Trump’s childish inability to handle even the mildest criticism becomes part of the government. It’s a sign of low self-worth, of paranoia and psychosis.
Trump was equally clear with me that he didn’t value—nor even necessarily recognize—the qualities that tend to emerge as people grow more secure, such as empathy, generosity, reflectiveness, the capacity to delay gratification, or, above all, a conscience, an inner sense of right and wrong. Trump simply didn’t traffic in emotions or interest in others. The life he lived was all transactional, all the time. Having never expanded his emotional, intellectual, or moral universe, he has his story down, and he’s sticking to it.
What is missing, beyond empathy, is NORMALITY. Trump hasn’t developed as a normal person. He doesn’t understand normal people and never will. It makes perfect sense that he has no idea what empathy is. Empathy requires that you build some kind of connection with the other, and there’s nothing in Trump that will allow that. He doesn’t CONNECT. With anyone.
If you criticize Trump, you are threatening his identity of being absolutely perfect and the best. You’re attacking his sense of himself as a person. He can’t detach what comes in from the outside from his own perception of himself. It’s all tangled up inside and erupts in petty, mean-spirited, schoolyard-bully mental attacks.
It’s actually astonishing that such a person is capable of existing in the public eye. Most insecure people hate being the center of attention. But the narcissist is different. His insecurity isn’t overt; it’s hidden beneath bullish confidence and an extreme denial of reality. What’s truly astonishing is how susceptible the public was to this guy. How utterly childish was their need for a confident man telling them that everything was going to be fine? The truth didn’t matter – their need to be SAFE did.
People who are secure in themselves can acknowledge reality and criticisms. They’re confident enough that it just doesn’t affect their self-esteem. They recognize that they can’t have everyone always agree with them and therefore learn to interpret honest objections and rebuttals without being personally attacked. They realize that sometimes, you fail, and when that happens, you evaluate what went wrong and alter your course. If there are objective reasons why things didn’t work out, then you accept those.
A narcissist like Trump, however, must maintain a perfect self-esteem despite being insecure. He is fearful of any criticism and responds with dismissal, ridicule or outright bullying. Having a legitimate discussion with a narcissist becomes impossible. The slightest realizations that things are not going their way can completely debase the narcissist’s abilities. They’ve learned the TRICK of pretending that they are the undisputed master of all situations, even when they aren’t. When they no longer possess this sense of self-efficacy, then their entire world crumbles. They feel abandoned, humiliated. Their ego has never experienced this and can’t handle it at all. Their insecurities come flooding in as the mask falls.
Trump’s entire world is built on the projection of self-belief. You can’t have honest, productive debate with the guy, because his identity is too fragile, his opinions and beliefs too simplistic, for him to sit there and be real with you about what’s working, what’s not working, and why. Honesty is WASTED on a narcissist.
Narcissists are very much like stars in that they are simplistically driven by two forces – an outward pressure pushing in, representing their insecurities and the criticisms of others – and an inward pressure pushing out, representing their inflated self-esteem. Each day that they stay conscious and exist is a struggle between these two forces, and this very struggle is what dictates everything about them. They are ruled by these two very different forces. They live in a universe built on the destruction of facts because that’s the only force that can buoy them up against their internal struggles – a stream of nonsense built upon ever increasing levels of self-projection.
But in the end, the crushing force always wins.
The narcissist is dominated by two opposing forces. We can see this directly in Donald Trump’s public attitudes. He simultaneously maintains that the world is out to get him and that he is the greatest person to ever exist. Isn’t that the strangest dichotomy? But when you understand that he’s driven by insecurity and pride, this suddenly makes sense. He always feels wronged and under attack. He compensates for this by building an endless narrative of his triumph.
In your relations with him, you either support his pride endlessly, in which case you are a good object to him, or you are critical, you bring forth his insecurities, in which case you are a bad object.
The entire reason that Trump is so polarizing is that he’s a walking duality. There’s no middle ground with him. He deals in extremes because the only forces within himself are these two extremes of hopeless collapse and ultimate buoyancy (ego).
Via his propaganda, Trump warps the minds of his followers according to his own existence, as if the whole of his person can be somehow transferred onto them. Whatever he is, they are too, and nothing else.
Humanity can at times be terribly prone to falling victim to this kind of spell. Look at how dangerous and unsustainable the MAGA Cult is. How immature and dumb, constantly oscillating between anxiety and self-righteousness. There are a lot of parallels with medieval Catholicism here.
Societies can be at turns, highly pragmatic and sober, or become exceedingly childish and illusory. The powers-that-be are very skilled at turning strife into illusionary spectacle.
When Trump is inevitably ousted or dies, what will the MAGA loons do then? Who are they without him, beyond a bunch of idiots obsessed with an almost child-like fantasy, an escapist mental world?
A key part of that story is that facts are whatever Trump deems them to be on any given day. When he is challenged, he instinctively doubles down—even when what he has just said is demonstrably false. I saw that countless times, whether it was as trivial as exaggerating the number of floors at Trump Tower or as consequential as telling me that his casinos were performing well when they were actually going bankrupt.
Controlling facts gives Trump control over his image, and this is vital. To lose control would be to submit to reality, and he can’t have that. He must control not just the narrative but the perception of his followers. This is the behavior of the SUPREMELY INSECURE. He controls not what he IS, but the projection of it.
The Trump I got to know had no deep ideological beliefs, nor any passionate feeling about anything but his immediate self-interest.
Ain’t that the truth. He hasn’t changed at all.
He derives his sense of significance from conquests and accomplishments. “Can you believe it, Tony?” he would often say at the start of late-night conversations with me, going on to describe some new example of his brilliance.
You can bet that identical conversations are happening inside the White House these days.
But the reassurance he got from even his biggest achievements was always ephemeral and unreliable—and that appears to include being elected president. Any addiction has a predictable pattern: the addict keeps chasing the high by upping the ante in an increasingly futile attempt to re-create the desired state. On the face of it, Trump has more opportunities now to feel significant and accomplished than almost any other human being on the planet. But that’s like saying a heroin addict has his problem licked once he has free and continuous access to the drug. Trump also now has a far bigger and more public stage on which to fail and to feel unworthy.
This is Trump’s trap. Anything he does to get more admiration also provides his insecurities with more fuel. He’s guaranteed to need more and more praise with time. That’s why he’s gone from bad businessman to rabid politician to dictator figure. It’s never enough. He will NEVER outrun his insecurities, just like a drug addict will never outrun the reality of their situation.
From the very first time I interviewed him in his office in Trump Tower in 1985, the image I had of Trump was that of a black hole. Whatever goes in quickly disappears without a trace. Nothing sustains. It’s forever uncertain when someone or something will throw Trump off his precarious perch—when his sense of equilibrium will be threatened and he’ll feel an overwhelming compulsion to restore it. Beneath his bluff exterior, I always sensed a hurt, incredibly vulnerable little boy who just wanted to be loved.
Trump is always vulnerable. He is insecure above all else. He needs constant praise. It can’t stop. His insecurities will grow just as fast as his ego. Always. That’s his curse.
What Trump craves most deeply is the adulation he has found so fleeting. This goes a long way toward explaining his need for control and why he simply couldn’t abide Comey, who reportedly refused to accede to Trump’s demand for loyalty and whose continuing investigation into Russian interference in the election campaign last year threatens to bring down his presidency. Trump’s need for unquestioning praise and flattery also helps to explain his hostility to democracy and to a free press—both of which thrive on open dissent.
If one can just grasp the nature of narcissism, one realizes just how sinister it can be. This person is literally empty inside. He isn’t being honest with himself, which is the foundation of health. His perception has become his protection because he can’t handle reality. He’s fragile. He’s always vulnerable to injury. He belongs in an insane asylum, not in the Oval Office. He’s a danger to the nation.
As we have seen countless times during the campaign and since the election, Trump can devolve into survival mode on a moment’s notice. Look no further than the thousands of tweets he has written attacking his perceived enemies over the past year. In neurochemical terms, when he feels threatened or thwarted, Trump moves into a fight-or-flight state. His amygdala is triggered, his hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activates, and his prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain that makes us capable of rationality and reflection—shuts down. He reacts rather than reflects, and damn the consequences. This is what makes his access to the nuclear codes so dangerous and frightening.
That activation of a survival state really speaks to a lack of self-esteem and heightened anxiety. Trump is forever feeling the threat of oblivion. He needs to constantly remind himself that he’s great (not because he thinks he’s great, but because he fears that he isn’t).
Over the past week, in the face of criticism from nearly every quarter, Trump’s distrust has almost palpably mushroomed. No importuning by his advisers stands a chance of constraining him when he is this deeply triggered. The more he feels at the mercy of forces he cannot control—and he is surely feeling that now—the more resentful, desperate, and impulsive he becomes.
Again, there’s the need to control his self-image. Narcissists are unable to regulate their self-esteem internally, which is precisely why they have to project it onto the external world. Their world is not built on a stable sense of self but on a fragile identity that can be destroyed at any time.
Even 30 years later, I vividly remember the ominous feeling when Trump got angry about some perceived slight. Everyone around him knew that you were best off keeping your distance at those times, or, if that wasn’t possible, that you should resist disagreeing with him in any way.
That “ominous feeling” is something to which the entire nation of America has been subjected for years now. Isn’t it time that they got a break?
In the hundreds of Trump’s phone calls I listened in on with his consent, and the dozens of meetings I attended with him, I can never remember anyone disagreeing with him about anything. The same climate of fear and paranoia appears to have taken root in his White House.
Someone like Trump cultivates an environment of total submissiveness and agreement. If you aren’t on board, if you don’t tell him that he’s awesome, you’re the enemy. And you’re fired.
The most recent time I spoke to Trump—and the first such occasion in nearly three decades—was July 14, 2016, shortly before The New Yorker published an article by Jane Mayer about my experience writing The Art of the Deal. Trump was just about to win the Republican nomination for president. I was driving in my car when my cell phone rang. It was Trump. He had just gotten off a call with a fact-checker for The New Yorker, and he didn’t mince words.
“I just want to tell you that I think you’re very disloyal,” he started in. Then he berated and threatened me for a few minutes. I pushed back, gently but firmly. And then, suddenly, as abruptly as he began the call, he ended it. “Have a nice life,” he said, and hung up.
One thing you notice about Donald Trump is that he expects everyone to be loyal to him but doesn’t seem to think he owes any loyalty in return. He is totally self-interested and self-obsessed. He thinks other people are boring, and his attention never strays far from the central subject of his life – his image. Can you imagine the immense challenge involved in trying to get Trump to talk about anyone other than himself? He doesn’t do that – not for long. It always comes back to Trump.
Alternate Titles
Donald Trump: The Great Pretender
Donald Trump: A Failure of Personality
Donald Trump: An Illusion of Greatness
Donald Trump: The Unconscious Mind of America
The Narcissism of Donald Trump