We Need to Recognize that the Problem is Psychiatric, Not Political

'You’re Dealing with an Irrational Megalomaniac Psycho Totally Cornered’

Dr. Bandy X. Lee, Psychiatrist, 3/23/31

We are in the most dangerous days of our lifetime, days pregnant with an escalating World War and the very real possibility that a severely-incapacitated American president, along with an equally dangerous Israeli prime minister, both cornered as never before, may escalate to nuclear weapons!

One of the nation’s most knowledgeable journalists, Chris Hedges, has said: “Israel has at least 300 nuclear weapons. And Netanyahu is insane enough to use one.” Brilliant Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar explained:

it’s no wonder that the unthinkable is resurging here and there and everywhere, which would be to resort to tactical nuclear weapons or even a nuclear weapon either from the U.S. or from Israel or both,… because you’re dealing with an irrational megalomaniac psycho totally cornered.

This is the original reason why, from the very beginning in early 2017, the nation’s top psychiatrists came together at Yale School of Medicine, believing we had a professional and civic responsibility to warn immediately how dangerous it was going to be to have a person with Donald Trump’s severe mental problems empowered—including, most worrisome of all, control over the nation’s nuclear weapons. That was why we rushed to print what quickly became a major national bestseller a few months later that year.

We further warned since 2017 that, unless he is contained, his actions would become more and more dangerously erratic to the point of becoming unstoppable—even to the point of setting the world on fire. Sure enough, here we are now!

When I comment on the need for fitness standards, impeachment, prosecution, and now mobilization of the international community, I am not doing so from a political perspective but a psychiatric one. These are the interventions needed to contain a psychiatric emergency. Indeed, a basic level of mental health is a requirement for all human affairs, including politics. Until that basic level is fulfilled, everything will be in need of psychiatric consultation and care (there are locked psychiatric hospitals, for example, where incapacitated individuals remain until capacity is restored, or until they are no longer a danger to society).

This is what former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly understood when he stopped Donald Trump from waging nuclear war against North Korea. When he found a dangerously mentally-impaired president, for whom no other method worked, he immediately consulted our book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President”—and used it like an “owner’s manual.” Through psychiatric principles, he managed to turn “fire and fury” into “love letters”—and helped the nation escape nuclear annihilation!

While this was commendable and we may owe an ultimate debt to him, Kelly could have done more. He should not have consulted our book “secretly”, so as to keep “the office of the presidency” intact. He ended up protecting psychopathology, not the presidency. He should have honestly recognized that, just as political methods could not divert Donald Trump from the temptation of nuclear weapons, no political process would be sufficient without acknowledging that we have a psychiatric situation here. Only after the psychiatric emergency is contained, can we begin to consider such things as preservation of presidential decorum.

Some days ago, I wrote: “World, You Have the Chance to Save Us All: We Need Action, Not Impotent Words.” That article focused on the urgent need for a new, reinvigorated United Nations (UN) that would quickly rededicate and reenergize itself to deal seriously with the original reason of its creation: to prevent international conflict and to maintain international peace. As the UN Charter specifically states, its central purpose is: “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Yet, it has abrogated that overriding raison d’être. I wrote what should immediately be done to rectify this situation at this critical time in history, and will follow up on a more detailed plan.

For a psychiatrist, however, the “What to do” is far less important than, “What do I see?” There is a reason Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings begin with introductions like, “I am an alcoholic”—it is because identifying the problem is 90 percent of the solution. This is even more pronounced for psychiatric issues: prognosis depends on the ability to acknowledge the problem, called insight. The goal of therapy almost entirely revolves around developing insight, so that the person can fix the problem on one’s own; it is usually not ability that is lacking, but awareness.

The same holds true for an entire people, or the global community. Do we know what the problem is? Do we see the power we hold? Can we exercise it? Once we resolve these questions, solutions are a matter of course.

There is a reason Benjamin Netanyahu wanted so badly a mentally-feeble American president, whom he could use to wage a reckless war that no other commander-in-chief would agree to. His need to dominate—first by vanquishing the Palestinian people, then vastly expanding Israeli territory, placing the entire region under Israeli control, and exercising unlimited power with CIA/Pentagon backing—is goading us toward a global Holocaust. Once we see what is truly happening—that so-called, “strongmen”, are in reality profoundly insecure individuals who resort to antisocial and destructive means, in a futile effort to meet their unmet emotional needs—we are far less likely to be seduced by their image or to elevate them to power.

We need to guard our own mental health in order not to be attracted to the psychiatrically unwell, and to seek the appropriate help where necessary. For now, there is the emergency situation of Donald Trump continuing to raise the stakes, as things are not going well for him. He faces multiple situations spinning out of control: Iran, Israel, the economy known as “affordability”, NATO, BRICS, Russia, China, the midterms, and Epstein, Epstein, Epstein…. What would be painful but tolerable for a healthy person is catastrophic for his limited emotional capacity, and we cannot rule out his triggering, in a fit of rage, the unthinkable weapon—and igniting the end of the world. Preventing this from happening, by honestly recognizing what we are dealing with and rapidly responding to the need, is the most urgent responsibility of us all.

Also, another major opportunity lies immediately ahead for the people. The upcoming “No Kings” demonstration needs to be not just a repeat of the past but an impactful recognition of the situation, capable of arousing the kind of creativity and compassion for ourselves so as to confront this unprecedented conundrum.