Psychologist Mary Trump: Why Pres. Trump Hates Losing

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Can you can you sort of dig into your knowledge, your family knowledge, to tell us sort of what you think he’s doing?

MARY TRUMP, AUTHOR, “TOO MUCH AND NEVER ENOUGH”: Sure. First of all, it’s great to be back. The most important thing we need to keep in mind is that Donald is in a unique position for him. He’s never in his life, been in a situation that he can’t get out of either through using somebody else’s money, using connections using power. And not only is he in a unique position, he’s in a position of being a loser, which in my family, certainly, as far as my grandfather was concerned, was the worst possible thing you could be, which is why Donald has always done anything he could to be the winning ops, be on the winning side of something, whether it was through cheating, lying or stealing. So he’s feeling trapped, he’s feeling desperate, deep down, he’s feeling terrified, but because he can’t acknowledge that he’s, I imagine, becoming increasingly enraged.

AMANPOUR: And terrified of what?

M. TRUMP: It’s just a very old emotion that he’s never been able to process from when he was a little kid, terrified of the consequences of being in a losing position, terrified of being held accountable for his actions for the first time in his life. Because he saw in my family that transgressions against my grandfather, failing to be abused to my grandfather, failing to be a winner were punished severely, and he still carries the burden of that fear.

AMANPOUR: Before I get to other sort of more substantial challenges that may face him out of the White House, do you think there’s anybody who can talk him down off of this ledge of denial, if that’s what it is, or talk him down off this ledger fear at all?

M. TRUMP: I don’t. Partially because one of the worst things that happened to him in the last week is that although he lost decisively to President- elect Biden, the Republican Party as a whole did fairly well, they certainly outperform Donald. So he also doesn’t have anybody else to blame. So I think that he is probably in a position that nobody can help him out of emotionally and psychologically which is going to make it worse for the rest of us.