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Tonight, a clinical psychologist who has closely studied Donald Trump for years says the president has many of the same traits as a clinical psychopath, and is warning those traits could become far more pronounced and dangerous if Republicans suffer big losses in November. Vice President JD Vance’s Ohio rally was interrupted today by a protester who accused him of protecting child predators. Elon Musk delivered an ominous warning to a journalist, saying she’d “die by the sword” after she said Musk was likely to be the subject of federal investigations should Democrats win back control of Congress. And Republicans’ massive financial advantage in the midterms isn’t really helping them move the needle all that much.
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Dr. Vincent Greenwood, director of the Washington Center for Cognitive Therapy, is one of the most experienced clinical psychologists working today, conducting more than 1,700 psychological evaluations over his career. Today, he told the Daily Beast that Donald Trump is exhibiting three particularly destructive traits that are commonly associated with “clinical psychopaths” — impulsivity, remorselessness and an intense need to dominate others.
Greenwood told the outlet that Trump’s remorselessness is the most alarming trait, explaining that clinical psychopaths lack “the guardrails that a normal functioning conscience provides” and don’t feel any discomfort when faced with the suffering of others. He’s also insisting that those traits are grounds for removing Trump from office via the 25th Amendment.
But Greenwood said things could get especially dangerous after November, if Republicans lose big in the upcoming midterms. The longtime psychologist said the threat to Trump’s power could trigger frantic efforts to protect himself, driven by an acute need to avoid the prospect of humiliation and a perceived loss of control. According to Greenwood, Trump will “act quickly without considering the consequences.”
Greenwood emphasized that he has not personally examined the president and his assessment shouldn’t be confused for an actual medical diagnosis. But the behavior the psychologist described is playing out in full view of the public. Earlier this summer, threatened to annihilate a “whole civilization” in Iran in a late-night social media post. And during an Oval Office event this week, Trump warned a reporter asking him a question that he’d “better be careful.”
A spokesperson for the White House responded to the Beast’s report by calling Greenwood a “total moron” and a “Democrat hack doctor.” That’s usually the same canned response for any medical professional who raises very real questions about the president’s mental and physical fitness to do the job of commander-in-chief.
We officially ratified the 25th Amendment in 1967, just a few years after the country was forced to reckon with the sudden assassination of John F. Kennedy. Today, more than 70 members of Congress have called on Vice President Vance and the presidential Cabinet to invoke it for the safety of the country. Even former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has called on Congress to rein in Trump, calling his threats against Iran “absolute madness.”
Meanwhile, the vice president can’t seem to escape the Epstein files no matter where he goes on the campaign trail.
At a Wednesday rally in Ohio for Republican congressional candidate Eric Conroy, Vance was in the middle of a diatribe against incumbent Democrat Greg Landsman when a young attendee wearing a suit and a red MAGA hat standing right behind Vance stood up and shouted: “You protected pedophiles!” The crowd then drowned him out with boos and a “USA” chant as he threw his hat to the ground, and he was quickly carried out by security.
Predictably, Vance accused the protester of poor grooming rather than speak to the substance of the accusation. He joked that the man likely hadn’t washed his hair in months, and claimed people with poor hygiene vote for Democrats, to sparse applause.
This suggests that the administration still has yet to give people a satisfying answer about the president’s biggest second-term scandal of botching the release of the Epstein files, which was heavily redacted and woefully incomplete. This marks the second time this week alone that Vance has deflected on the question of the Epstein files. During a Monday rally in North Carolina, when another protester yelled at Vance to release the files, Vance accused him of being an undocumented immigrant. The mockery may help with the MAGA faithful, but it doesn’t do anything to make the Epstein issue go away.
The world’s wealthiest man appears to be genuinely rattled by the prospect of being hauled before Congress next year.
On Wednesday, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk warned tech journalist Kara Swisher: “Live by the sword, die by the sword,” in response to her telling the Bulwark’s Catherine Rampell that Musk would likely be at the top of the list of people Democrats want to investigate should they win back control of Congress in two weeks. Musk added that it seemed like Swisher “really wants to go to prison.”
During her interview with Rampell, Swisher pointed out that federal authorities had been investigating several of Musk’s companies, and that if former Vice President Kamala Harris won the 2024 election, Musk very well may be behind bars right now. She also observed that Musk has reaped significant benefits from the Trump administration’s new deregulation and his Justice Department’s halted investigations.
Journalist Mehdi Hasan wrote on X that the only time Musk ever came after him personally was when he suggested a Democratic majority should look into any potential federal crimes Musk may have committed. Hasan then wondered why that seems to bother the South African centibillionaire so much.
It’s a question worth asking. When a foreign-born oligarch who spent hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money to elect Trump responds to mere talk of hearings by suggesting a journalist should be in prison, that suggests he may have genuine fears about being held accountable.
So far in the 2026 midterm election cycle, Republicans have spent an eye-popping $677 million on broadcast TV ads across 10 major Senate battleground states, compared to just $479 million in ad spending from Democrats. But Politico is now reporting that money isn’t going nearly as far as GOP donors hoped.
This is largely because of how TV ad rates are set. Both political candidates and their respective parties, are now legally entitled to much lower ad rates than independent expenditure groups like super PACs. Individual Democrats running for office have hauled in millions for their own campaigns, while Republican Senate candidates have struggled to bring in donations of their own and have counted on outside money to help them catch up.
Those numbers paint a revealing picture. In Ohio, for example, GOP-aligned groups make up roughly 63 percent of the estimated $218 million spent so far. However, just over half of their ads are actually on the air. In Texas, Republicans have outspent Democrats three to one, yet that’s only led to them airing 58 percent of the ads.
Even former Republican Federal Election Commission (FEC) chairman Sean Cooksey admitted there are significant limits to big outside money, and said hard donations from individual givers help a lot more. Democratic ad producer Ian Russell told Politico that Republicans seemingly aimed to spend their way out of their problem, though they have much deeper issues that no amount of money can fix.
GOP strategists are also privately complaining that Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC waited until September to buy TV airtime, when prices were already soaring.
Ever since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision, the right has bet that unlimited outside money could overwhelm ordinary voters. This cycle, small-dollar donors are showing that bet has limits.
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I’m British Chris, with Raw America. Thanks for reading, thanks for supporting independent news and please be sure to hit the ❤️ and click restack if you haven’t already, so we can get these stories in front of the most people.
Also, be sure to catch our live interview this Friday with Kentucky Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Charles Booker at 12 PM ET. Watch it live on our website at RawAmerica.com.
