Investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill shared a startling revelation last week that Iranian negotiators had recruited psychologists to help navigate what they believed was Trump’s “impaired mental state.” And on Monday, Scahill provided an update on Iran’s unique approach to the negotiations, which he said Tehran partially credited for Sunday’s success.
“Senior Iranian psychologists began working with the negotiating team to try to cater the messages that the Iranians were sending via mediators back to Donald Trump to try to take into account what they say as his specific mental illness and mental deficiencies,” Scahill said in an interview with Democracy Now published on Monday.
“Almost quite clinically, they said they began to see this process yielding results as they worked with psychologists to send these communications to Donald Trump, and they credit that, in part, with getting to this point where Trump finally accepted some version of his manufactured and almost entirely false victory narrative.”
I don’t think this is unique, it’s just rare for someone to openly say it.
Especially since openly saying it runs the rather high risk of undermining the whole approach. If Trump hears this, he’ll get all pissy and tank things for the sake of his fragile ego.
You can see it in most every person in Trump’s circle. They all play the game of manipulating the president, all you need to do is risk your dignity and you can pretty much get him to do whatever. If they dare to serve their own ego, they fail.
Maybe the con is longer than just this deal. Or maybe this is coming from someone other than Iran that wants the war to heat up rather than end (or even just to keep the strait closed).
Or maybe someone’s head got too big and they wanted to brag about manipulating Trump when it wasn’t yet strategically or tactically sound to do so.
Colud be someone bragging to someone not expecting it to work all the way out to the media.
Or a narrative that is probably fairly described, but editorialized. E.g. if they did state the fact they had the help of psychologists in negotiating, that statement by itself doesn’t necessarily insult a man that thinks only very smart people pass cognitive tests.
So the reporting actually extrapolates into the obvious, but unstated implications of why pyschologists would be useful in this situation.
How quaint of you to think those psychos have a shred of dignity
Yep, posessing a shred of dignity really gets in the way of manipulating Trump.
Well that’s what they’re saying… they don’t have any dignity, that’s why they can get him to do all this stuff.