Is Trump OK? Experts warn he is 'narcissistic' and 'insecure' after indecent Iran threats and Pope attack
- Last updated: April 15, 2026 | 13:05
On Easter morning, President Donald Trump fired off a Truth Social post critics said was so “unhinged” that it reignited the debate around his mental health.
“Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy b*****ds, or you’ll be living in Hell,” he raged at the Iranians on his Truth Social platform amid the deeply unpopular war in the Middle East.
Less than 48 hours later, there were calls to invoke the 25th Amendment — an extreme measure allowing for the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to declare the President unfit for office — after Trump threatened to wipe out 93,000 people.
“A whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump, who will turn 80 years old in June, posted on April 7 ahead of a deadline for Iran to make a deal with the US. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” While critics have long claimed that Trump is mentally unfit for office, the concern over his recent social media outbursts, which appear to have gone beyond his usual bluster, has reached new heights amid the war with Iran.
“One of the things that we need to consider is that he is drifting more into a natural state, being fed by the sycophants that are around him, and developing almost like this delusional level of narcissism,” Dr. Geoff Grammer, a Maryland-based psychiatrist and retired Army colonel, told The Independent.
Grammer, who describes himself as “anti-MAGA,” is one of a growing number of mental health professionals sounding the alarm about Trump’s erratic behaviour.
Rant against the Pope
In recent days, Trump has attacked Pope Leo after the US-born pontiff said that a “delusion of omnipotence” triggered the Iran war. A day later, Trump was forced to delete an AI-generated image that appeared to depict him as Jesus. The President stretched credulity when he tried to explain on Monday that he thought the image was depicting him as a “doctor” — he took it down after about 12 hours, facing backlash from far-right Christian figures.
While experts cannot diagnose someone they have never assessed, they have mused that Trump’s recent behaviour is perhaps rooted in a deeper insecurity.
“The reality is, there’s a large differential of things that it could be, including him feeling trapped and developing narcissistic rage,” Grammer said. “It could be that he’s becoming disinhibited, but it could also be that he is just drifting to who he naturally is.” Trump’s foul-mouthed Truth Social last week wasn’t the first f-bomb he has dropped publicly in his second term. Last June, Trump vented to reporters about a failed ceasefire between Iran and Israel. “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing,” he said, appearing exasperated.
In October, when a reporter quizzed Trump about tensions with Venezuela, Trump said of its now-ousted leader, Nicolas Maduro: “He offered everything. You know why? Because he doesn’t want to f*** around with the United States.” Shari Botwin, a Philadelphia-based trauma therapist and author, said the President’s use of profanities and threats suggest “some possible narcissistic traits.” “It could suggest that he is having a heightened emotional reactivity, which could indicate that he is experiencing anxiety, fear, or his own frustration,” Botwin said. “His threats to wipe out a civilization demonstrate his own projection to maintain strength and control.” Ultimately, Botwin said the language could reflect a “need for validation and recognition.” “The lack of empathy that comes through in his posts can be alarming and indicate that he has no regard for the suffering of other human beings,” Botwin said. “In many cases, when someone is using aggressive rhetoric, it often serves as a defence mechanism to mask one’s own vulnerability or insecurity.” “The provocative language that he is using also suggests some possible narcissistic traits,” she added, “where he is drawing attention to himself and overriding the possible consequences of his messaging.” Prominent Democrats issued fresh calls last week to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on a key congressional oversight committee, urged White House Physician Captain Sean Barbabella to immediately perform a comprehensive cognitive assessment on the President after the Congressman called warning signs that the President “has been exhibiting signs consistent with dementia and cognitive decline.” And in a letter to Vice President JD Vance last week, Rep. Jasmine Crockett claimed the President is “deranged, likely suffering from dementia, and has now brought the United States to the precipice of committing one of the largest war crimes in modern history.” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle took aim at Raskin and Trump’s predecessor in a statement to The Independent.
“Lightweight Jamie Raskin is a stupid person’s idea of a smart person,” Ingle said. “President Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility stand in stark contrast to what we saw during the past four years when Democrats like Raskin intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s serious mental and physical decline from the American people.” Experts in conflict resolution, meanwhile, said that the President has backed himself into a corner with Iran.
His “extreme” language could be interpreted as a sign of “frustration” that the conflict has not been as seamless as January’s military operation in Venezuela, said Paul Fritch, a former US diplomat and senior NATO official.
“I think we can understand the President’s increasingly extreme language as a sign of frustration, as he finds himself embroiled in a crisis he does not have the unilateral ability to end,” Fritch told The Independent. “He’s also spent much of the past year dismantling the very diplomatic tools that would be most useful in finding an exit strategy,” Fritch said, adding that cuts to the federal workforce had played a part in this.
“The professional Foreign Service has been cut by more than 20 per cent, and offices dedicated to engaging with Iranian civil society and countering Tehran’s disinformation were eliminated,” he explained.
‘Madman’ theory
“The abolition of USAID led to the end of a programme to provide internet access and VPNs to Iranian dissidents. The nuclear negotiations that attempted to forestall the conflict, as well as last weekend’s talks in Pakistan that attempted to end it, did not include regional experts from State or nuclear experts from Energy,” Fritch added.
“This leaves him overly reliant on military threats and coercion, which are ill-suited to achieving the main strategic objectives of reopening the Strait of Hormuz and containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions,” concluded Fritch, a current senior fellow at the Middle East Institute Switzerland and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.
There are those who argue that Trump is playing to his base and employing the “madman theory” in negotiations with Iran.
But Trump said himself that he was ready to act on the threat to wipe out Iran’s civilisation.
“I think that we have a phenomenal military that I rebuilt during my first term and I used in my second term, and I was willing to use it,” he told The New York Post.
“I was willing to do it.”
The Independent