Kerry Sulkowicz: Is the President Mentally Fit?

and this guest was actually John's idea. We had a conversation of fascinating conversation I thought I thought I was I thought I was fascinating, Thank you, But with Carrie Sulkowitz, who is a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst, and it was your idea to have him on the podcast. Why Mulner,

why did you think that was a good idea? Well, we were having lunch and Carrie was sharing his views of President Trump and some of his behaviors which so many people are talking about trying to understand, and he had a very clinical, analytical assessment of some of the things that we're seeing. And I asked him if he'd be willing to come on and talk to you about it. Now. I didn't know you were gonna invite me to sit in. I don't know what I'm doing here. But let's get

Brian back quickly. But it was really interesting to hear him, and I was somewhat surprised when he said he would come on. Yeah. Well, I was pleasantly surprised because a lot of mental health professionals don't think it's appropriate to opine about the pathology of public officials, certainly the president of the United States. But Carry was willing to do that. And willing I think he thinks it's really critically important to do. One thing to note, though Kerry is not

your average psychiatrists or psychoanalyst. He actually stopped his clinical practice some time ago. He now advises CEOs and senior leaders on leadership and management. So here he is Dr Carry Sulkowitz. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for inviting me. So I should point out, John, you and Carrie know each other pretty well from when you were a partner at Brown Brothers Harriman, that's true here in New York. Tell me a little

bit about your relationship. Well, Carrie was hired as an executive coach for Brown Brothers and UH and I had a chance to work with him, and he helped me think about my career and my relationship with other partners at the firm and how to help grow the business that I was involved in, and then from that a personal friendship grew. So you're really an executive coach, would

you say, now, Carrie, or an executive what? Actually, notwithstanding what John just said, which I appreciate, I actually don't like that term executive coach, even though I'm sure I've

been called far worse things. Katie. I'm I'm a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst who about twenty two years or so ago, stumbled into the business world and started today consultancy, advising CEOs and boards and management teams, really trying to apply a clinical perspective to working with leaders and helping them on the various challenges they face every day. Well, we have so much to talk about, Carry, I'm really and

me I call you Carry, Dr k Um. So much to talk about about leadership, about mental health, mental fitness when it comes to our current president. But first I want to talk a little bit about you. How did you get into this field in the first place. I thought it was fascinating that your parents were both Holocaust survivors. Can you tell me specifically sort of how your interactions with your parents and trying to figure out their pathology

and their past influenced you going into psychiatry. Yeah, it did. Um. They were wonderful people. They're both gone now, unfortunately, but it was clear that they were both quite damaged by the experience of the world, though it left them with

certain kinds of strength and resiliency as well. Um, And my fascination in part was, you know, how did leaders of countries get large groups of people to do good things, and especially how did to get them to do bad things, including the kinds of things that had happened to my parents and many other people who were um incarcerated in the Holocaust. So that was rattling around in my head as a kid, although I didn't know what to do with it. It certainly didn't feel like something that might

become a career. And I also had a bit of my son the Jewish doctor syndrome, and so knew that I had to go to medical school uh and did. But as a psychiatrist I went into private practice and loved some aspects of it. I liked helping people still do like the intellectual underpinnings of it, but was a little too restless to be sitting in an office all day seeing one patient after another. And then actually met a my first entrepreneur at a cocktail party, um about

twenty two years ago. And it turns out that leaders need somebody to talk to, and he probably had a couple of extra glasses of wine that made it a little easier, and he opened up to me about some of the challenges he was having being a CEO of a startup. And I thought it was just an interesting cocktail party conversation until he asked me if I would be interested in advising him in his company. That was

really the beginning of my new career. How does advising CEOs differ from advising patients in a clinical setting in a number of ways, Katie. First of all, I want to make it clear that when I'm advising a CEO, they're not my patient. Um My, My work with him is undoubtedly informed by my background as a clinician. Uh. It kind of comes in handy sometimes to understand something about human behavior and various ways people have of dealing

with complicated feelings. But I'm not treating anybody, um. I would also say an important distinction is that when I'm working with the CEO. The CEO is part of the client, but the client is always the organization itself, and so it allows me an access to the CEO of the management team, the board, a more systemic immersion in the life,

the business, the culture of the organization. And when you're dealing with CEOs who have all that authority and power within an organization, how does that sort of authority reflect itself in the personality of the of the leaders of organizations. The CEO, as I would say, are people first and foremost, but there are people who are affected by the roles that they're in, and those roles change them in some profound ways. Um CEOs are isolated. They are inherently lonely.

The nature of power is such that it inhibits the upward flow of information to them, and so they often don't really hear what they need to hear, what's going on down below. And they also don't have anybody to really confide in inside their organization for the same reason,

so they need somebody to talk to their lonely. They're isolated, their anxious, They're dealing with complexity, ambiguity every day, so they're constantly faced with new challenges that they don't know the answer to, and so how do you how do you find it? When you then challenge CEO, who's you to making a decision and having a decision implemented? Where you say, well, is that the right of course of action? Is that the right decision? Have you weighed other factors?

I do that all the time. I challenge CEOs, but I don't necessarily do it in the first few minutes of talking to them. Have you ever had as CEO say you're fired? You know, there have been some engagements a few of them that haven't worked out, but it happens pretty rarely. I mean, I try to be patient. I try to establish a relationship. I try to establish

some trust, which of course doesn't happen immediately. I should also point out that there is a self selection that goes on in terms of the kinds of CEOs that I work with, that I bet a lot of them wouldn't want anything to do with someone like you, with all due respect, no no, no disrespect taken there. It's absolutely true. The really egregiously narcissistic, difficult, horrible CEO is

the bad bosses that people talk about. For the most part, they're not calling me, they're well, they're not self aware enough to call you, right, And that's the it. Self awareness is really the key here. The ones that call me have a modicum of self awareness, at the very least. Nobody's ever fully self aware, but they have some sense of their own loneliness, their own need to have somebody

to talk to. There may be people problems on their team, there may be leadership challenges that they're facing that they don't know how to deal with, and they need someone to bring that perspective to bear. I want to talk to you about sort of the need to have someone in the organization be the truth teller for the leader.

I think I read a piece that you wrote in the Harvard Business Review about how leaders pick people they can confide in, but that those confidants can ultimately be exceedingly damaging to the CEOs to most CEOs have a tendency and do they have to fight against this of picking sickophants and people who will basically echo and and

be a yes person right right so? And and how big a problem is that I wouldn't make the generalization that most CEOs tend to pick sick of fans part of what I was trying to to say in this article that you mentioned in the Harvard Business of You a number of years ago, is that the the confidante that a CEO chooses is an absolute reflection of the

CEOs psychology to begin with. So the better CEOs, and we can talk about what a better CEO is, but the better CEOs, the ones that are more self aware, the ones that are more attuned to the fact that they need someone to talk to to help them think through things, are not going to pick the sick of fans. They're going to pick the ones who talk straight to them,

who speak truth to power, so to speak. Um, the ones who are more narcissistic, the ones who are more fragile in terms of their self esteem, they're the ones who are going to pick the sick of fans who just tell them what they want to hear. Is Narcissisms come up a couple of times. I have a feeling it may come up more in the discussion as we go on. But but to some extent, would all CEOs have a level of narcissistic characteristics or behaviors or is

not necessarily true? That's a great opportunity for you for me to give you my thirty second lecture on narcissism. Thank you. The term narcissism, certainly as it's used in popular culture, is never meant as a compliment. Uh. It's usually meant as an epithet. It's thrown around a lot

too casually. But narcissism is something that is better thought of, at least in my view, as something that exists on a spectrum, and we all have some of it, right, There's a degree of healthy narcissism that is necessary for any of us to be successful in life, to care about how we show up for work every day. I think of that that musical avenue que. Everybody's a little bit racist. I always think everybody is a little bit narcissistic.

That's right, everybody is a little bit narcissistic. And in fact, some people could use a little bit more of it. The people who are too shy and retiring and and and hide away and or don't put enough attention into how they appear, or don't take pleasure in their work. Those are all aspects of what I would describe as healthy narcissism. So if you think of it on a spectrum with healthy narcissism at one end and unhealthy or

pathological variations at the other end. I think it's just a more holistic way, even though I think sometimes people want to see things as black and white, like you either have it or you don't. But narcissism is not like pneumonia or appendicitist that where you either have it or you don't. So on a scale of one to ten, one being not enough narcissism and tend being way too much, what sort of balance are we looking for in the most effective uh, corporate leaders or political leaders that you

see where we're on the scale? Does that fun? You sound like the finance guy that I know you to be. I need a number. Carry, Give me a number for you, I will say somewhere between five and seven. But I don't think that way, so I don't. We'll save that for a private conversation. I'm not gonna weigh in on this conversation, but let me I mean carry our most successful people. Do they rate high on the narcissism scale?

Because I feel like narcissists can be exceedingly charming, They're really good at get getting what they want, UM often high emotional intelligence. Am I crazy? No, you're not crazy. But I would say that that narcissism and emotional intelligence are not mutually exclusive up until a point, and then when you cross over into the more pathological realm of narcissism, then emotional intelligence falls off a cliff and you lose

that ability to read other people. You lose the ability to empathize, and that's really critical here, the ability to transiently put yourselves in the emotional shoes of somebody else. That's my definition of empathy, by the way, is an absolutely essential quality of a really good leader. But if you're really narcissistic, the only person you care about is yourself. You can't relate to understand care about emotions. The other side empathy is the other side of the coin with

respect to narcissism. At the at the severe end of the scale of narcissism, there's very little empathy. I hate to dive in to narcissism too deeply, but I dated a guy who I thought was a narcissist, not not my husband, and um, you know, I spent a lot of time in the self help section of Barnes and Noble because I had never experienced a narcissistic personality. And one of the things that I think is misunderstood and

carry your you're the expert. But from all the reading that I've done is you know, narcissist staring at his reflection in the in the pond or whatever. And the mythology of narcissism it seems to connote someone has incredible hubrists and think so highly of himself or herself. But what I thought was interesting, this comes from deep, deep, deep insecurity and this feeling that it's really overcompensating for feeling less than And is that accurate? That is accurate.

I'm gonna run a follow some of the self help book writers, but that's one of the problems with any self help book is that it's necessarily general. They're certainly intended to be helpful, and I don't question the intentions, but they don't necessarily get into the deeper underpinnings of this, which actually helps us empathize with the narcissists. I think

that's because you know, I read a lot. You know, I was went through a bad period of my life and I read a lot about this and a lot about modeling about um, you know, someone forming a sense of self very early on in their life and how that contributes later to this narcissistic personality disorder. That's right.

We I want to make it really clear that when we're talking about whether it's narcissism or sociopathy or a whole host of other psychological phenomenon that may come up in this conversation, we're not passing moral judgment about any of it. These are not moral judgments. These are clinical assessments, and those are two very very different things. We have to keep them separate to your question, Katie, about the roots of narcissism, which I think is really what you're

asking about. It's not about somebody's a bad person and that they're spoiled and need to be lapped on the wrist or somehow received some kind of training. The roots of narcissism, certainly from a psychoalytic point of view, go way back to early childhood and usually are an individual's very understandable response to certain kinds of emotional deprivation or trauma in their early years. And it's hard to generalize about that because, as we know, children can be scarred

in all sorts of ways, infinite ways. But the people who come up through childhood and early adulthood and develop into a narcissistic character. M have not had easy childhood's, even if they look like they have grown up in households of great privilege. It's time for us to take a quick break. When we return, we'll talk with Dr Carry Sulkowitz about the mental health of the most powerful man in the world. No, not you, Mulner, the President of the United States. That's right after this, and now

back with Dr Carry psychoist. One of the reasons we were interested in having you come in, Carrie, is talking about the pathology and the President of the United States, Donald Trump. There has been a lot of conversations about his mental state or whether he is actually mentally fit to lead the country. And narcissism is specifically malignant narcissism has come up quite a bit. What's the difference between your run of the male narcissist and a malignant narcissist.

Let me back up a minute if I can, um I want to avoid the psychiatric approach and take the more psychoanalytic approach here and discussing it. Frankly, I think it's more helpful to people who are listening to this and who are looking to understand tell us the difference.

So the difference and I'm both, I'm trend as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, But the psychiatric approach is largely a medical based approach that is focused on the diagnosis of mental illness and and of course the treatment of that illness. When it comes to talking about a public figure, it's something that I think is frankly not that helpful. There's a whole controversy around that which we can get into as well, the so called Goldwater water, the Goldwater Rule.

But I I think I find it personally less interesting to try to attach a label uh to a president or to anybody else for that matter. And more I want to try to understand observable behavior, behavior that's observable to all of us, not just to those who are clinically trained, as well as the appeal of that behavior to people who support him and like him and don't

question him. Let's talk about your analysis as a result of everything that you've witnessed, that you've seen the president's behavior, the president's way of communicating via tweets, speeches, that he's given, his behavior rallies. What do you think about his personality or his pathology. And I'm going to try to put this in terms that are certainly informed by my clinical perspective, but that really come through the lens of being an

advisor to leaders. That's the That's the lens that interests me the most, and I think is most relevant because for better or worse, he is the leader of the free world, at least the leader of this country. Uh. And after all the talk about narcissism, I would say that his narcissism is only one part of what we are dealing with here. Uh. In fact, his narcissism, while so obvious. I mean, look, Katie, you don't have to be Sigmund Freud to decide that Donald Trump is narcissistic

as an adjective, what about malignant le narcissistic? Well, malignant is a is a word that is used to describe the extremes. It's not a black or white, sharp distinction. But he is. He is out there in terms of

his his clear focus on himself. But the reason why I want to move a little bit beyond his narcissism, even though I'm not in any way diminishing the importance of it, particularly the lack of empathy is that while his narcissistic behavior is so obvious, so overt, the very fact that it is so prominent obscures other aspects of his psychology and his behavior than, in some ways are

more troubling to me. I should also point out that narcissism alone has never precluded anyone from being president, and if we look at the modern presidents of this country, some of the more narcissistic ones have been arguably very successful presidents, and those who were on the lesser end of the narcissistic spectrum arguably have been less successful as presidents. To foot put this in terms of narcissism alone, I

think misses the complexity of the issue. Carrie, give us some background on the Goldwater Rule, when that came about, and why that limits other medical professionals from opining on public figures. The Goldwater rule traces its history back to the nineteen sixty for presidential election, when very Goldwater was

running for president. Of course, he didn't win, but during that campaign, a magazine that existed at the time that's lo gone called Fact Magazine, published a survey of American psychiatrists. Members of the American Psychiatric Association UM and many of them felt that Goldwater was unfit to serve by virtue of his mental health, and that in particular, that he had a paranoid personality. That's what they said in the

magazine published that survey. Of course, the election was over, Goldwater lost, and after the election he sued not the psychiatrist, but he sued the magazine itself for libel, and this case dragged out for a number of years. Ultimately he won,

but it sent the psychiatric profession reeling. The American Psychiatric Association and in particular, studied this problem and came up with what then became known as the Goldwater Rule, which if I remember correctly, came out in the early seventies, So there was a long period of time between the election and the issuance of this rule, which has just recently been updated even more strongly by the A p A. Which basically says, if you do not have personal experience

with an individual, seeing them face to face, um, you're in no position to evaluate them. That's right. That The rule basically says two simple things. One is that you can't make a diagnosis at a distance. You can't make a diagnosis without actually examining the patient. And then the corollarity of that is, if you do examine someone as

a patient, then you're bound by reasons concidentiality. But I'm yeah, But my own view is I actually find the gold Water rule invalid and not helpful and frankly stifling of freedom of speech. I think it's I agree with one narrow aspect of it. It's not responsible to be slinging around diagnoses as epithets. But that's not what we're talking about here. Uh And so I actually find the gold

Water Rule relatively irrelevant to the current discussion. Any commentator, whether you're trained clinically as a psychiatrist, psychologist, psychoanalyst, or anybody else for that matter, can comment on the mental state of of another person. It's nice to be able to comment on it if you have some training and doing so. Um. And these days, there is an abundance of publicly available information about public figures that there wasn't back in nineteen sixty four. Well, that's what I was

going to ask you about. I mean, so as you compare uh, in person sessions with a person compared to social media articles, speeches, things that are in the public record,

other information the public domain. What's the qualitative difference between the two as you as you're trying to form a judgment, or for that matter, we're trying for the irony, and the qualitative difference between looking at all of this detailed, nuanced, colorful information in the public domain versus talking to somebody in private, particularly for some kinds of people, and I would be inclined to put the President in that category.

You'll you'll probably get a lot more from publicly available information than from examining him privately. For the fact of the matter, well, it's less staged. He is never going to I think it's fairly safe to assume that he is never going to seek out treatment because he doesn't think there's anything wrong. That's one of the reasons why narcissistic people never go to a psychiatrist and say, Doc, can you help me with my narcissism? That just doesn't happen.

But you know, how comfortable are you speaking out carry because I know the American Psychiatric Association still abides by the Goldwater Rule. It's the largest psychiatric organization in the world. Are a lot of people in your field, uh, do they feel this is just grossly inappropriate? Some do, but many don't, and many psychiatrists, psychologist, psychoanalysts have spoken out very publicly about Trump, again, not to issue a diagnosis, but to talk about the phenomenon that we're all observing

and troubled by personally. I'm not even a member of the American Psychiatric Association, haven't been for probably two decades, uh, And I'm speaking as a as a private citizen who happens to be trained as a psychoanalyst. There are many

mental health professionals carry who agree with you. There's an organization called Duty to Warn, and I think they've amassed something like thirty eight thousand signatures, many from mental health professionals, apparently saying that this group believes it has a moral obligation to speak out about Donald Trump and his his mental capacity. So do you agree with that? I do agree. My name is among those thirty eight thousand or so, and I have no hesitation to sign on to that.

I do feel that that's right. The one of the hallmarks of a clinical perspective is a duty to warn, which quite simply is that it's it's the one thing that supersedes confidentiality, and that that if you learn and again, it's it doesn't fully apply because we're not talking about a clinical relationship with the president, obviously, But if you learn that somebody is dangerous to themselves or to others, there is a duty on the part of the mental

health professional to warn the appropriate authorities. In this case, one would argue the public at large about that danger. Are you a Democrat or Republican? I'm a registered Democrat. And some listeners might be hearing this, Kerry and thinking your politics are seeping in to your judgment about Donald Trump.

What would you say to them? And if in fact his politics were more aligned with yours and his policy proposals were more in keeping with yours, do you think you would find his personal behavior or the way he conducts himself less repugnant. I think it's a great question. There is no question that my political views vary with Trump's quite a bit and affect my my feelings about him. Um.

I was not a fan of George Bush. Uh I was not a fan of Bush's politics either, but I never thought that his psychopathology was the primary issue that

was about political differences. You did once right, though, that George W. Bush kind of dissed the notion of therapy, and you didn't think that was a good thing because he made a comment about not wanting to get on the couch and talk about what he did in a rock that you're referring to a letter that I had published in the New York Times that was about a comment that Bush made, um about showing his lack of

curiosity to learn from the mistakes of the invasion of Baghdad. Um. And Uh, I thought that he by saying that that was he was gonna leave that for somebody to be on the couch about. That was a bit of a gratuitous slam about the mental health professions. But that wasn't about Bush's psychopathology. UM. So, to answer your question directly, do my politics affect my views of Trump? Undoubtedly they do. How can they not infuse or informed to some degree

what I'm saying. And it's difficult to to tease those apart entirely. Um. But I think that what makes this even more compelling is I think that a lot of Republicans, Um, I'm not sure they liked Trump all that much either, and I think they're as observant as anybody else about his his quirk, his personality, uh distortions and so forth.

I think that some are exploiting the moment of his presidency now to get certain policies in place, But I don't think there's any particular love there, And as soon as his ability to keep that window of policy opportunity open closes, I don't think that anyone's going to rush to his defense. Let's talk about people who like what they see. Over nine of the people the last poll I checked said they would vote for Donald Trump all

over again. And I read an interesting essay by an editor of a newspaper in Ohio that endorsed Trump, and he explains what his supporters like about the president even still. He writes, they appreciate Trump's America First agenda not because they believe in isolationism, but because they believe the United States and its citizens should be the government's top priority. What Trump's supporters also appreciate about him are the very attributes for which he is relentlessly criticized in the media.

People here, a farming community supplemented by modest pain retail jobs and a few factory opportunities, are frank and plain spoken. They're weary of politicians whose every statement seems carefully crafted to say nothing and offend no one. You know, I agree with a lot of that myself. I might add I think that the priority of a president should be the American people, although I do think that the American presidency involves taking a role in the world, not just

in the United States. But I agree that that Americans should be the priority of the president. Um. I think the plane spokenness is a is a complicated issue there too, because that gets into the whole discussion of political correctness, which I think is a term that has been so co opted by the political right to be an excuse for saying whatever kind of garbage, including racist and misogynists

and so on, garbage comes to their minds. So I think that term has ceased to be useful because it originally preferred to being sensitive to other people's feelings, and I think that they're still room for that. I don't think we should be saying whatever comes to our mind. That's a terrible idea if that's what the opposition to

political correctness means. But I think that the people who are in parts of the country who are economically disadvantaged, who are struggling with the opioided epidemic, who are disadvantaged in all sorts of ways, and who have been neglected by their their government, local and national people who I understand their distrust of politicians making a glib, meaningless, superficial

comments designed to get reelected. So I'm extremely sympathetic to and supportive of their of their plight, and we need to do something about it. And I'm not saying that there that the Democrats have got that all figured out either and have addressed any of that with with anything approaching adequacy. What concerns me, though, is that Trump's psychology

plays into the very vulnerability of those people. That is part of why they're suffering right now, and they're being duped into believing that this man who makes these glibs, simplistic, boil it down to phrases kinds of comments, is going to help them. And I am worried that they are wrong and tragically wrong, and that electing a president like

this is voting against their self interest. Okay, so suppose that a board of directors had asked you to look at this candidate ceo, candidate Trump, that we were considering appointing this person as CEO of a corporation what would be the summary of of your observations. I would raise concerns about his ability to inspire with a moral purpose, and I think moral leadership is actually the highest form of leadership, and I don't see that from him. He

is a leader. If you define leadership most narrowly, it's and it sounds like a circular thing I'm about to say, but leadership has to do with the ability to inspire followership, and clearly he has done that. So did Hitler and Mussolini. They inspired followership. Whether or not there was a moral purpose and an ethical basis to their leadership is another story. So I don't think he has that. I think that other aspects of his leadership that are troubling to me

are his impulsivity. He is an impulse written character who has apparently very little tolerance for frustration or for delayed gratification. He has to have it now, and he does it now. That's evidenced by his tweets and by his shoot from the hip approach to just about everything. I don't think he's particularly intelligent, so looking at his cognitive abilities, I think he's not a reader, a studier. He has to

have everything dumbed down into bullet points. I, for one, would like to have a president or a leader who who actually digs deeply into the issues and recognizes that that problems are complex, not not overly simplified. He So, there's there's impulsivity, there's narcissism. There, there's what I would describe as sociopathy, and that to me may be the

most troubling at all. Which what does that mean? Well, So to define terms, first, there are there are three terms that are often used relatively interchangeably and and appropriately, so people refer to sociopathy, psychopathy, and then there's a psychiatric diagnostic term called the antisocial personality disorder. Again, that's making it a medical kind of disorder, which is why it's my least favorite of those three terms. But they're all essentially the same um. Sociopathy has to do with

extremes of lack of empathy. These you'll notice that these these terms blur, and that's the nature of things. People don't fall neatly into one bucket or another. Extremes of lack of empathy the willingness to harm others without any apparent conscience, and it's the absence of a conscience that is one of the most prominent features of sociopathy. UM and certainly you often hear that Donald Trump refuses to apologize for anything or except blame for anything, and is

that consistent with this sort of pathology? It is consistent with that not only does he refuse to accept blame or responsibility, but he uses what is what a psychoanalyst would describe as a very primitive defense mechanism for dealing with that, and that is called projection. In other words, if he does something wrong, rather than own it or even denying it, he both denies it and then attributes

it to somebody else. So if if somebody is if he's feeling m vulnerable, then he projects that vulnerability onto someone else and makes them feel weak. Are there qualities that you've observed in the President United States that you admire or that you think are bona fide strengths. I'm hard pressed to find them in isolation, because I think they can't be evaluated or really looked at that way. I think they have to be looked at in in aggregate.

And the totality of his personality is something that I find terrifying because of its ability to inspire and permit bad behavior and others. Well, the point you talked about in terms of inspiring moral purpose or leadership, if I simplified that when you go around and you look at the cabinet meeting and you have these very accomplished people former president of Goldman Sachs, former CEO, chairman of Exxon Mobile, and other cabinet leaders and senior members of the administration

praising the president. Let's take a listen to that cabinet meeting that John's referring to. Maybe start with Mike and we'll just go down and just you name your position, and then will ask these folks to go back and have a good day, and we're going to discuss the various supports. Mike, thank you as president, and just greatest privilege of my life. It's the surveyor as vice president, who a president is keeping his word of the American people. This is a team he was as symbol that's working

hand and love with the betterment America. I don't I want to thank you for that. These are a great team members and we're on your taking. Thank you so exactly. Exac bright message and is being responded the responses fagness around the country. So Carrie. Here, you have this group of senior people that are happy to be under the leadership of President Trump. How do you explain that and basically slobbering all over him. Carry Let's just be honest.

On an emotional level, I found it disgusting the behavior of the members of that cabinet. But it's understandable too, in that they are members of the cabinet and he is the President of the United States, and they're terrified that they're going to get fired if they don't fall in line, right, And that, Katie is exactly the problem. It's not just that they were kissing his behind in that meeting, but it's that they are doing that in a way that is a reflection of the power differential

that exists. They are afraid of him. So the fact that they're accomplished executives in their own right, which of course is true, uh, doesn't really have much to do

with the context that they're in now. They're not there as the CEO of Exxon or of a senior person at Goldman Sat. There there is the member as members of his cabinet, and it's a way of pledging allegiance, and that's what people do with totalitarian leaders who are who are cruel, who are sadistic, and who demand either overtly or more often uh covertly, demand that kind of pledge of allegiance. I'd love to pick your brain about

a couple of other episodes that we've witnessed. Here's a clip of President Trump's first address as president, when he spoke to people at the CIA, when he fixated on the attendance at his inauguration. Let's listen and then we'll discuss. This was in front of the Wall of Honor. Yes, And I turned on and by mistake, I get this network and it showed an empty field and it said we drew two hundred and fifty thousand people. Now that's

that bad, but it's a lie. We had two hundred and fifty thousand people literally around, you know, in the little ball that we constructed, that was two hundred and fifty thousand people. The rest of the you know, twenty block area all the way back to the Washington Monument was peck So we caught them, and we caught them

in a beauty. And I think that a lot of people talked about how inappropriate it was for him to raise this in front of as John mentioned, the wall of honor people who had sacrificed their lives as working for the CIA through the years. I mean, it's a

very sacred place in that building. But it also seems to reflect carry a pattern of behavior of getting fixated, of trying to right wrongs, of trying to be correct in his assertion, whether it's losing the popular vote and insisting that there were a lot there was a lot of illegal voting or else he would have won the popular vote, insisting about the crowd at his inauguration. We've seen this sort of repeating itself. What does that suggest

to you? He is preoccupied with his image, again consistent with the nurse sis m. He is preoccupied with the appearance of bigness, and he needs to be big and bigger than everybody, whether that's the crowd that he's got or god knows what else, has to be bigger than everybody else is and he's bragged about that too. Um. He also is preoccupied with the idea that others are lying, and that's what I was talking about earlier when I

was talking about projection. Um. He lies frequently, and the press has made a sport of cataloging all of his lives. But he is constantly accusing others of lying. And that's that's what a great example of projection, where he's disavowing something that he does in attributing it to somebody else. As far as you can tell, carry, is there anyone in President Trump's inner circle, either professionally or personally, who has the power to tell him what he doesn't want

to hear? One would hope based on their pedigrees, their credentials, But I haven't seen much evidence of it yet. Of course, I'm not at all privy to what's going on behind closed doors, but people don't last very long, apparently, around this president if they do tell him the truth, if they speak truth to power. What do you make of Trump's affection for leaders like Vladimir Putin? He seems to be drawn to Vladimir Putin and other kind of strong men,

if you will, what's that about? He? You're right, it's fascinating that he's drawn to to putting another strong men leaders. Uh, And I think that in some ways he identifies with that. It's aspirational for him. I think he uh sees that the only kind of valid leadership is leadership and involves exerting absolute power and control um and Putin has been at it for a lot longer than than Trump has.

You know, there's a there's a great line about about power from I believe it's from Robert Carrow in his biography of Johnson, where he talks about how how power doesn't corrupt, power reveals and I've always found that to be a particularly insightful comment that given given someone great power rings out the personality that already existed, just underscores that, underscores it gives it a bigger platform to have more profound effects. Carrie Solkowitz, it's so great to have you.

Thank you so much for coming in. I could talk to you all day about all sorts of things. In fact, I'd like to lie down and continue this conversation. Do you have one of those paper towels and the change by Harold? You did? You sold your couch? That's true. Well maybe you'll make a special exception for me carry. Thank you so much, John, good job, Thank you, Katie. That was fine. You're very good at what you do. Thank you. Do you think that John has a future

and podcasting, Carrie? I think he does, But You're the best. Sorry mull Okay, come back, Brian. A big thank you as always to our trustee podcast team, our producer Gianna Palmer, our sound engineer Jared O'Connell, Alison Bresnik for all she does for us on social media. Thanks to Emily Beana of Katie Kirk Media, and to nor Ritchie for her editorial support as well. Nora's very tan these days, Noura, don't forget to wear your sunscreen. Meanwhile, we love our

theme music, don't you, John. I'd give it like a ninety five for dancing. That's from Mark Phillips. He's our composer. I like the music, do too. Anyway. Brian Goldsmith and I are the show's executive producers. Where is Brian? He is on a family vacation and he was nice enough to vacate the premises and allow you to sit in and he sent me a couple of questions. Thanks Brian. We love Brian, and don't worry, Brian. John does not want your job. I don't. He definitely doesn't want your job.

He spends enough time with me. He doesn't need to be locked up in a studio anyway. You can find us on social media too often, according to my husband media anyway, I'm at Katie Kirk on Twitter and Instagram and Katie dot Kuric on Snapchat. You can find me on Facebook as well. Brian tweets his heart out at at Goldsmith b and Muelner. You guys have got to follow John Mulder on Instagram. It's j O h n Oh sorry j j o h N m O l

n e R. He is really really funny. He's quite irreverent though, and sometimes says things that people who like me don't like, like when you post pictures of you and other hot women, other hot women, not just me. Anyway, It's okay, I think you're really funny. Take a look. There's some good stuff. Alec Baldwin taught me to do an impersonation of the man we spoke about today. I know a Donald Trump impersonation. You need to work on

your hand chest. Here's a little bit mulner But anyway, if you enjoy our show and you haven't rated, reviewed, or subscribe to us in Apple Podcasts, please just do it already. We'll talk to you next week. John, I may not talk to you next week, so thanks for having me. Katie fun being with you,