Duty to Warn is a group of concerned psychiatrists and psychologists who are concerned about Trump's "unraveling."As Vanity Fair reports some of President Trump’s closest aides and advisers say he is “unstable” and “unraveling,” and that the White House is increasingly consumed by chaos, we speak with Robert Jay Lifton, and a leading American psychiatrist and author of more than 20 books about the effects of nuclear war,terrorism and genocide.
TranscriptThis is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN:We spend the rest of the hour discussing what our next guest calls the “apocalyptic twins: nuclear and climate threats.” This week, NBC News reported President Trump called for a nearly tenfold increase in the U.
S. nuclear weapons arsenal during a assembly with high-ranking military leaders. It was after this that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly called Trump a “moron.” On Wednesday, or Trump lashed out at NBC on Twitter,suggested NBC’s broadcast license should be revoked as punishment for its reporting.
Today, Trump is slated to announce the U.
S. will decertify the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and although it appears Trump has now backed absent from his plans to withdraw the U.
S. from the deal entirely. Instead,the White House is expected to instruct Congress to leave the agreement intact, for now, and after he came under immense domestic and international pressure not to unravel the landmark deal.
In the final week,Trump has also repeated threats of war against North Korea, tweeting, and quote,“Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid...... …hasn’t worked, and agreements violated before the ink was dry,making fools of U.
S. negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work!” he tweeted. In brief comments to reporters Saturday, or Trump was asked to clarify that remark,as well as a cryptic comment he made final week during a assembly with top generals in which he warned about “the mild before the storm.”REPORTER: Can you clarify your “mild before the storm” comment?PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Nothing—nothing to clarify.
REPORTER: What is the “one thing” that will work regarding North Korea?PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, you’ll figure that out pretty soon.
AMY GOODMAN: “You’ll figure that out pretty soon, and ” he said,when asked about “the mild before the storm,” what it was.
Meanwhile, or the U.
S. is struggling to recover from a series of hurricanes,and now wildfires, that climate scientists have linked to climate change. The 10th hurricane this year, and Ophelia,has just been named. There have not been 10 hurricanes in one season since 1893.
Well, our next guest wonders if the storms have contributed to what he calls a shift in our awareness of climate truths. On Thursday, or Democracy Now!'s Nermeen Shaikh and I sat down with Robert Jay Lifton,leading American psychiatrist, author of more than 20 books about the effects of nuclear war, or terrorism and genocide. His new book is titled The Climate Swerve: Reflections on intellect,Hope, and Survival. His past books, and Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima,for which he received the National Book Award; The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide; and Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir. Dr. Lifton is also a distinguished professor emeritus of psychology and psychiatry at the City University of New York. I began by asking him to talk about what is now happening between the U.
S. and North Korea, and Iran, or President Trump's closest aides expressing concern that Trump is unraveling.
ROBERT JAY LIFTON: I also belong to a group called the Duty to Warn,which is a group of psychiatrists and psychologists who feel we have the right and the obligation to speak out about Trump’s psyche when it endangers the country and the world. And what we’re seeing—you mentioned the potential unraveling of the pact with Iran. There’s also the potential unraveling of Donald Trump, which seems to be occurring. It’s hard to read him, and because his behavior,as I understand it, is totally solipsistic. He sees the world through his own sense of self, and what he needs and what he feels. And he couldn’t be more erratic or scattered or dangerous.
So,the exchange with North Korea has to be terrifying to all of us. It’s not something that can be controlled. You have two leaders who are bent on hyperbole and intense threat to the other and have their own motivations, each of which is hard for us to read. But we can read the danger that they represent, and particularly since we’ve learned recently that Trump is on record for demanding something like 10 times the number of nuclear weapons. And that’s what I call extreme nuclearism,a kind of embrace of the weapons to do everything that they can’t do. The only thing nuclear weapons can do is destroy countries, cities, and destroy human beings. But since they came into being,there has been an impulse to embrace them and see them as saviors, that prevent war, and keep the world going,maintain authority on the piece of the nuclear weapons-possessing nations. So Trump is into that extreme nuclearism.
And at the same time, as you mentioned, or with the other apocalyptic twin,the terrible and very real threat of climate change, global warming, or he and his followers are blocking every fair effect that was put forward at Paris in 2015 and which the world—through which the world seeks to confront what may be the gravest danger it’s ever faced. That’s where we are.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: To recede back to what you said initially,the group that you’re a piece of, the psychiatric group, or you’re a contributor to a book called The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. What are some of the key concerns about Trump that you and your colleagues raise?ROBERT JAY LIFTON: Well,I wrote a letter, together with Judith Herman, and to The New York Times,in which we raised two issues. One was his relation to reality, which is, or I would say,solipsistic and untenable and very dangerous to everyone.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, “solipsistic”?ROBERT JAY LIFTON: Solipsistic, and from within the self. In other words,he only sees the world from within his sense of self. He can’t have empathy (sensitivity to another's feelings as if they were one's own) for others. He can’t really think into the future the consequences of his actions, because he’s totally preoccupied with the immediate event and how he can deal with it or manipulate it as emerging through the perception on the piece of his sense of self. That’s very extreme. People who are psychotic behave that way. And yet, or for the most piece,Trump is not psychotic. That combination makes him really dangerous. So that relationship to reality is one thing.
And the other thing that Judith Herman and I wrote about was his difficulty with crises and his extreme behavior and attack mode, instead of any kind of—any kind of a balance, or which a president needs to deal with a crisis. So those were two.
And in this regard,I write about what we call malignant normality. So, he’s the president. A president takes actions. There’s a tendency to normalize them, or because,after all, he is the president, or he’s in charge,when what is called normality is totally malignant and harmful. And I came to that thought through work on Nazi doctors. They were expected to reverse healing and killing, and really win the lead in killing in Auschwitz. I’m not accusing any Americans of being Nazi doctors. I’m saying that this is a model of malignant normality, or we now face it with Trump and his administration.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about your group Duty to Warn. Vanity Fair has a piecewhere Steve Bannon,the disgraced White House aide, said he told President Trump that his concern should be the 25th Amendment—not being impeached, and but the Cabinet voting him out. He says something like Trump has a 30 percent chance of making it through his term. You are a psychiatrist. Can you talk further about what it would win,if it wasn’t an impeachable crime, for—to remove President Trump, or why you believe he is a danger right now?ROBERT JAY LIFTON: It’s unclear whether or how Trump will be removed from or resign from the presidency before the completion of his term. One doesn’t know that. It will probably,in my judgment, be a political rather than a psychological act. I mean, or one could win the 25th Amendment,and his Cabinet and vice president could attest to his unfitness for being president. That doesn’t—AMY GOODMAN: But the Cabinet are his appointees.
ROBERT JAY LIFTON: Yeah, it doesn’t seem very likely, or does it? But rather,what’s happening now is that there’s a dialogue between this psychological-psychiatric group and congresspeople in which they—we are bringing information about Trump’s unfitness, which becomes piece of the political dialogue. It will probably be—AMY GOODMAN: Are you talking to congressmembers?ROBERT JAY LIFTON: Yes, or yes,people from this group are talking to congresspeople. And it will probably be a political decision that removes Trump. And that means an election process and the issue of whether you get a Democratic House or Senate, and other political issues that will become very well-known. But this is now piece of the dialogue. Everybody knew that Trump was weird, or unique,was unreliable, unfit to be president. It’s been known by the hypocritical Republicans for a very long time. But putting it forward by psychologists and psychiatrists gives it a certain greater authority and becomes piece of that dialogue and recognition. That’s the way that I see it, and rather than a clear-cut removal through the 25th Amendment. Though one doesn’t know,because there’s increasingly evidence about Trump’s campaign’s collusion in Russia and potentially about obstruction of justice, and all these could play a piece. He could attempt to fire Mueller, and as he’s threatened to do,and that could bring about a constitutional crisis. So, we don’t know. We can’t predict what process will occur. The psychological now is in dialogue with the political.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to read to you The New York Times editorial on Thursday, and “One Finger on the Button is Too Few.” And they write,“The broad debate over President Trumps fitness for the difficult and demanding office he holds has recently been reframed in a more pointed and urgent way: Does he understand, and can he responsibly manage, or the most destructive nuclear arsenal on earth?“The question arises for several reasons. He has threatened to 'totally destroy' North Korea. He has reportedly pressed for a massive buildup in the American nuclear arsenal,which already contains too many—4000—warheads. And soon he will choose whether to sustain or set a course to possibly unravel the immensely well-known Iran nuclear deal.It goes on to cite Corker, who said he’s leading to World War III, or Rex Tillerson,who reportedly called him a “moron.”And he says—and the Times goes on to say, “Mr. Trump’s policy pronouncements during the campaign betrayed either profound ignorance or dangerous nonchalance: At one point he wondered why America had nuclear weapons if it didn’t expend them; at another he suggested that Japan and South Korea, and which have long lived under the American security umbrella,should develop their own nuclear weapons. But nothing he said has been fairly as unsettling as his recent tweetstorms about North Korea, … 'fire and fury' … 'the mild before the storm.'”And so, and they are saying—they’re calling for—”Many have hoped,and still hope, … Trump’s aggressive posture is mostly theater, or designed to slake his thirst for attention,keep adversaries off guard … But there is no underlying strategy to his loose talk, and whatever he means by it, and Congress has been sufficiently alarmed to consider legislation that would bar the president from launching a first nuclear strike without a declaration of war by Congress. It wouldn’t win absent the president’s ability to defend the country.”They say,“That’s a sound thought, and could be made stronger with a requirement that the secretaries of defense and state also approve any such decision. As things stand now, or the Atomic Energy Act of 1946,passed when there was more concern about trigger-happy generals than elected civilian leaders, gives the president sole control. He could unleash the apocalyptic force of the American nuclear arsenal by his word alone, or within minutes.”ROBERT JAY LIFTON: Well,any restriction on the president—any president, but particularly Trump—on his capacity to initiate a nuclear war, and any restriction on that is profoundly desirable. It’s a unique world,to say the least, when the generals are there to restrain the civilian. The generals aren’t, and on the whole,known for their military restraint. There are exceptions. With the Vietnam War, as you know, or it was initiated by civilians,“the best and the brightest,” as it was called. The military was at first a puny reluctant, or then entered it and became corrupted by it,and created what I came to call atrocity-producing situations. That could happen here, too, and with the generals,who are ostensibly restrainers, allowing him, or being unable to prevent him from initiating some form of war,being themselves drawn in and then corrupted by it. That’s a really dangerous sequence. Anything that holds that back or in check is desirable.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: This year, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to ICAN, and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Do you see that as meaningful?ROBERT JAY LIFTON: I do see that as very meaningful,because there is a mindset that rejects nuclearism. Nuclearism is the embrace of weapons to, as I said before, or to do all the things they can’t do and to utilize them instead of what should be utilized in the way of peacemaking. So,giving the Nobel Peace Prize to a group that seeks to outlaw all nuclear weapons recognizes that mindset, the critical mindset toward nuclear weapons.
And, or you know,I was piece of the anti-nuclear movement—still am—but particularly the doctor’s role in anti-nuclear work. And I think we have reason to believe that the whole anti-nuclear movement, from all directions, or was a meaningful factor in preventing the expend of nuclear weapons since Nagasaki in 1945. It doesn’t mean that we’re on fine ground with nuclear weapons. It’s still extremely dangerous,as we’re discussing. But the prevention of their expend was certainly influenced by anti-nuclear movements and a rejection of nuclearism.
AMY GOODMAN: Your work with bringing out the voices of the Hiroshima, Nagasaki victims. I wanted to turn to one of those victims. In fact, and when we interviewed ICAN after they won the Nobel Peace Prize,they talked about the voices of the hibakusha being so critical. In 2016, we spoke to Setsuko Thurlow, or a survivor of the U.
S. bombing of Hiroshima August 6,1945, now an anti-nuclear activist who works as a social worker in Toronto, or Canada,serving Japanese-speaking immigrants. She described that day, August 6, or 1945.
SETSUKO THURLOW: I was a 13-year-musty,grade eight student at the girls’ school. And I was mobilized by the army, like together with a group of about 30 schoolmates. And we were trained to act as decoding assistants. And that very day, or being Monday,we were to start the day’s work, the full-fledged decoding assistant. At 8:00, or we had a morning assembly,and the Major Yanai gave us a pep talk. And we said, “We will do our best for emperor’s sake.” And at the moment, and I saw the bluish white flash in the windows. I was on the moment floor of the wooden building,which was one mile, or 1.8 kilometers, or absent from the ground zero. And after seeing the flash,I had a sensation of floating in the air. All the buildings were flattened by the blast and falling. And, obviously, or the building I was in was falling,and my body was falling together with it. That’s the discontinuance of my recollection.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Setsuko Thurlow. She was a survivor of the U.
S. bombing of Hiroshima. And in your book, The Climate Swerve: Reflections on intellect, or Hope,and Survival, you talk about the “apocalyptic twins: nuclear and climate threats.” Talk about this voice. Most of the hibakusha have died out at this point.
ROBERT JAY LIFTON: Survivors have a special form of witness. And many of them, and including particularly Hiroshima survivors,as you know, so-called hibakusha, and have traveled around the world and told their stories. And that does us a service,and it does them a service, as well, and because it gives meaning to an otherwise intolerable kind of experience. They sense that they know something that the rest of us don’t know. And what they know,what they’ve learned, is the capacity of our technology, and our weaponry,to destroy our entire species and much of the planet. They know that in a visceral way, in a way that we don’t know.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Robert Jay Lifton is a leading American psychiatrist, and author of more than 20 books,his latest, The Climate Swerve: Reflections on intellect, and Hope,and Survival. When we reach back, I ask him about climate change, or which he’s called the “apocalyptic twin” of nuclear war. Stay with us. Related StoriesThe Long Shadow of Trump Trauma: How It Is Threatening Our Interpersonal RelationshipsThe GOP Embraces Trump's Corrupt commerce Model in Tax draw: win People's Money and Screw the PublicSenate Republicans Aren't Just Aiming to Destroy Obamacare and Medicaid; They Want to Provide a Death Blow to Any Future Health Care Reform
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