EDITOR’S NOTE: In this hard-hitting talk, economist and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs delivers a scathing critique of President Donald Trump, accusing him of lacking self-control and questioning his fitness to hold office amid rising global tensions. Sachs warns that the world is facing its most dangerous moment since World War II, pointing to unchecked presidential war powers, erratic rhetoric, and deeper systemic failures in U.S. politics and media. (August 20, 2026)
TRANSCRIPT:
A Dangerous and Opaque Moment
JEFFREY SACHS: To have a discussion about what is going on — first of all, things are opaque, as is obvious, because we don’t have a word of honesty from the United States government or from the Israeli government. Everything is propaganda, morning till night. Also, any statement by Donald Trump contradicts itself before the end of the sentence. So he’s absolutely impossible to even understand on his own terms, much less on geopolitical terms.
So the situation is very strange, very dangerous. I think probably the most dangerous moment in the world since World War II — probably even including the Cuban Missile Crisis. I say that with two psychologists. I’ll say it, you’re not responsible for me.
A Psychological Diagnosis
Maybe you’ll regret that you invited me, but I think Donald Trump is literally and mentally ill to a very serious extent. He is, from a personality point of view, a malignant narcissist, I think, is the right definition. Or if you want a more classical diagnosis, a dark triad personality, which means that he is personally narcissistic. He is Machiavellian, which means, in psychological terms, that he is manipulative, untrustworthy, deceitful.
And he is psychopathic, meaning that there is no empathy for how many people he kills or how much damage is done. The malignant narcissist definition adds paranoia and confabulation to this list. So I personally think we’re dealing with a psychologically deeply debilitated individual who happens to have a lot of power. And according to one psychologist I was listening to yesterday, that I thought made a lot of sense, there’s an element of frontotemporal dementia added to this, that you see through the incoherence of the sentences, the drift of thought, and even the confusion of words so that the words don’t even end as they begin. There’s a lot of — oh, what was the definition?
I’m missing the technical definition. Sorry, maybe it’ll come back to me. But in any event, there are real signs of dementia on top of what is a lifetime of antisocial personality disorder. A man like this should not be president. This is the most basic point.
A Broken Political System
He is president because of much deeper problems in the American political system. So he is a symptom as well as a cause. You don’t elect a person like this in a healthy political system. The American political system is deeply corrupted. The ability of a man like this to have the power that he does to order a war is a profoundly broken political order.
It has nothing to do with our constitutional system, where only Congress has the ability to declare war. We’re so pathetic right now in our politics that the only thing Congress does is vote repeatedly that they don’t want to have anything to do with overseeing this war. It’s not a choice that they have under the Constitution. It’s a complete abnegation of responsibility. How can the Senate say now, in three votes, “don’t ask us”?
“It’s none of our business. That’s just Mr. Trump’s business.” That’s exactly what the U.S. Senate has said. So I think that there are very particular circumstances right now.
Two Presidents, Two Declines
My own feeling is that Trump has actually — again, now I’m completely an amateur psychologist — but he seems to have deteriorated and lost any kind of self-control in the last three or four months. So there’s a degree of impulsivity which is absolutely beyond anything that I’ve seen before. By the way, this is the second time in a row that we have had a president suffering from dementia. And what’s interesting also is that with Biden, who had dementia for at least the last two years of his administration, it was all covered up until he stood there gaping in front of a camera, drooling, to all of the American people watching in a debate, and no one could hide it on camera. My country is pathetic right now in the political system.
It’s a show. It’s PR. Anything can get said. There’s no planning. There’s no systematic review.
There are no checks and balances. There’s nothing. And this was true with Biden, but it’s much worse with Trump. Biden was not a nice person. I’ve known him for about thirty years.
He never was a nice person. But he was not like Trump, with a deeply antisocial personality disorder. And so I just want to say we’re dealing with psychology here in the most individual sense. This is denied every moment of public discourse. It’s just amazing.
Normalizing the Abnormal
Take what happened in the last three days. First, the president said, “I’m going to blow up everything. I’m going to kill all of you.” That’s normal, this — oh, then you have the commentators.
“Oh, will he kill everybody? Well, that’s an interesting question.” Not “are we in the hands of a madman?” Nothing like that. Not one commentary says, “That’s a little strange for the president of the United States to be talking like that.”
Talking — sorry — like Adolf Hitler. No, not even a mention that this is a little strange. Then two days later, when he decides he’s not going to kill everyone, he says, “Oh, we’re close to an agreement.” And of course there was no negotiation period. But what does the press say?
“Oh, well, will Donald Trump be able to get an agreement?” Not “what a loon, what a liar,” nothing.