Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, where stories about the power of focus and resilience are revealed by the people who live those stories and now the host of the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, jack Hopkins.

Speaker 2: 0:20

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Jack Hopkins Show podcast. I'm your host, jack Hopkins. Today, I am honored to have as a guest a man I've followed for a long time because he's been in the effort to defeat Donald Trump for a long time defeat Donald Trump for a long time. He has quite a background, quite a list of accomplishments so many that I'm going to do something I rarely do and I'm going to actually read all of these things that I've got collected about Dr John Gardner. Dr John Gardner has described himself as a member of the resistance against Donald Trump. Gardner is convinced that Donald Trump actually believes that he has some type of godlike powers. Gardner has described Donald Trump as unwell, dangerously unfit, malignant personality who has reaped massive destruction, who is hypomanic, showing gross signs of dementia and other mental illness and personality disorders. He started and collected signatures for the petition titled Mental Health Professionals Declare Trump is Mentally Ill and Must Be Removed, and it was sent to Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. At the end of April 2017, gartner sent the petition to Washington DC with more than 41,000 signatures. With more than 41,000 signatures.

Speaker 2: 2:10

Dr Gartner has been a practicing psychotherapist in Baltimore for 35 years. He's an esteemed teacher and assistant professor of psychiatry at John Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore for 28 years. He's also an author of two groundbreaking books and has written for Psychology Today, the Washington Post, chicago Sun-Times, baltimore Sun and many others. He's also appeared on ABC News, msnbc, cnn, fox, comedy Central and NPR, npr. I think it's clear that Dr Gartner is somebody who's been around the block. He's got the experience, the education, the expertise to be able to talk about Donald Trump and his mental and emotional health, and today he's going to do that. But he's going to also talk about something that is a new project and it's one that is timely, just like the podcast that I did yesterday with Mr Pat Hicks. His idea was so timely in this crunch time that we have between now and the election, and Dr John Gartner is here with me today to talk about that.

Speaker 2: 3:49

But so, without further ado, I want to introduce the man who I had previously asked to come on my podcast, and he was busy and had a lot of things going, but within the last couple of days the opportunity came up and I jumped on it, so I present to you Dr John Gardner. All right, what an honor to have you here today. I've watched you and I've followed you and I'd love to get this guy on. I'd love. But I also knew in the back of my mind you are a busy guy.

Speaker 2: 4:23

Everybody wants a piece of Dr John Gartner on their podcast, or you know. So it's truly an honor. And I want to start this by saying you know, you and I had communicated online a bit over the past few months and I knew when you sent me, you're the kind of guy that if you're asked to do a podcast, you're not going to say yes when you're not ready or when you don't have something to say. So when I got your message a few days ago that said I would be glad to come on your show that said I would be glad to come on your show I knew I needed to move quickly because you had something important to say. So I'm just going to let you, instead of me trying to explain it, I'm going to let you start with what you messaged me about.

Speaker 3: 5:24

Right? Well, jack, thank you for that introduction. It's really incredibly kind and generous of you, and thank you for having me on the show. And you're right, I reached out to you because I do have a message. Yesterday, george Conway launched a new political action committee. It's called the Anti-Psychopath Pack, or Anti-Psycho Pack for short, and the reason I'm excited about it is, as you've pointed out, I've been part of this movement now since Trump was elected, trying to warn the public about his dangerous psychopathology and, in particular, his malignant narcissism. And at this point, you know, I've said it and I've said it and I've said it, we have our own podcast Shrinking Trump, and we say it and say it in our podcast. But the problem is we're talking to people who agree with us, right? So when I ask you to amplify one of my tweets, and you're so kind and you do it, ok, we're still reaching people who agree with us.

Speaker 2: 6:20

Right, and I'm guilty of that as well.

Speaker 3: 6:22

Right, and I'm guilty of that as well. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But the thing is, we want to have an impact, right. We want to have an impact on this election because it is an existential threat and that's not an exaggeration.

Speaker 3: 6:35

The great thing about the initiative that George is undertaking here is he's trying to reach undecided voters.

Speaker 3: 6:40

He's trying to reach that sliver of the population that are still persuadable, and oftentimes these are low information voters. They're not on Twitter, they don't listen to your podcast and they don't listen to mine. So true, but what they do do is they drive on the highway and they watch TV, and so the money that he's collecting for this PAC, he's using to put up signs on the highway and advertisements on television. And so, if we can look, I think there's a section of the electorate who, deep in their hearts, know he's nuts, but they might vote for him because, whatever they think Joe Biden's too old, or if it's Kamala Harris, she's too black or too female, or whatever we need to really arouse inside of them an awareness they really already have that he's not right, that he's dangerously sick, and so if we can reach 1% of one percent of the voters with that message, right, it really could make a difference. You know we could win or lose by 50,000 votes in Wisconsin or Michigan.

Speaker 2: 7:52

Absolutely.

Speaker 3: 7:54

So so you're right. I reached out to you because, yes, this is just your plain old shameless hawking. You know, I've got a product to sell, but it's not something I'm making money on. The message is what we've been selling, but now we have a chance to get the message out to the people who matter, the people who can make a difference.

Speaker 2: 8:14

And I want to emphasize, I had previously asked you to be a guest on my podcast. I had just mentioned it in passing and I said if you would consider coming on my show, I'd love to have you. And again, I realize you've got a lot going on and you are busy. So in a way, you reaching out and saying I'd be willing to come on was just a response to my request. Except you were ready, you had something and you knew it and I said okay, I'm going to grab this and I thank you for you know, one thing that has surprised me in this kind of whole podcast thing is a lot of people are kind of reluctant as a potential guest, reluctant as a potential guest, to reach out to a podcast host and say, hey, I have something, would you like to take a look at it? And you know what? It's amazing the number of times when you do that you've got a host who's going. Oh, wow, thank you, I needed a guest for this week, thanks.

Speaker 3: 9:22

Jack, can you help me teach that to my son, because? I'm trying to teach him how to get a job, and he doesn't seem to want to reach out as shamelessly as I obviously am totally capable of doing.

Speaker 2: 9:35

Oh, that is beautiful. I'd say I would be willing to do that, although I'm struggling with the same thing with my son. Oh, that's beautiful. Well, the thing about this project that you're talking about you're so right in that there was a period of time where I was convinced that, you know, there's not a lot you can go to with the people that we're talking about. That's really going to change much. You know, it's easy to get into that. They're not reachable kind of mindset. And when I started bringing up things like Project 2025 or pointing out some of the things that you and your colleagues have talked about and many times on your podcast and on different interviews, when people were hearing that straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak, rather than just somebody saying, oh, trump, he's nuts they're very defensive on the very ambiguous he's nuts, he's a crackpot kind of stuff, right, right. But when you can put something behind that and say, and here's why, here's perk up.

Speaker 3: 11:04

One of the things that I think George is doing that is so brilliant is if you look at some of his ads or his. Recently he was on MSNBC and he brought a chart with him of the diagnostic criteria for narcissism and antisocial personality disorder. And I guess he's an accomplished trial lawyer so he knows what it's like to come before a jury with a prop and say, look, here is the evidence. But the evidence really is very clear. Just to take psychopath okay, which is the most dangerous part of his multi-part diagnosis, you know the diagnostic criteria are things like frequently lies. Well, you know, you don't need to be a psychiatrist to know that he frequently lies. The Washington Post said he lied 30,000 times and by now I think people have given up counting. But he's the most documented liar probably in human history. Tell me who can beat him, tell me who's been documented to tell more lies. And so it goes down the list like that. You know breaking laws and norms. Well, he's a convicted felon, 34 times over 88 felony counts. So obviously he breaks laws and norms. Violates the rights of others. Well, he sexually assaults multiple women. So I would call that violating the rights of others. So again, it really is.

Speaker 3: 12:19

It's actually been a mind game that the press has played on us to make it seem like this is some mysterious, unknowable fact, right, that it's a taboo, we can't talk about it, we can't know about it. You can't diagnose him from a distance. Yes, you can, okay, because in psychiatry, since 1980 in the DSM, we've used observable behavioral criteria for all our diagnoses in plain common English language. So those criteria that I was just describing to you, right, that's all common English language words and that we tried to demystify diagnosis in that way. So it's not a mystery and it's really a slam dunk, but the press has made it, has shrouded it in mystery and there's really to some extent suppressed this story. You know, one of the things that George has pointed out in one of his videos is the editor of the Washington Post, marty Baron, wrote a memoir in which he describes an incident that I was involved with, which is that during the Trump presidency, three times I was interviewed by a Washington Post reporter for a story on the issue of Trump's mental health and three times, after the story was written, it was spiked before it was published.

Speaker 3: 13:27

And Marty Baron writes about his decision to spike those stories and he said that, well, talking about the mental health of politicians is, quote, the last taboo. So this taboo that we've been up against has actually been helping to normalize his pathological behavior and lull people into a false sense of security. Because by not labeling it for what it is, then people we naturally accommodate to whatever situation we're in, right, I mean even people who live in the gulag, right, people who live in the worst circumstances we accommodate. The human being has the capacity to do that. So when we're in the presence of pathology and craziness and we're being gaslit because nobody's telling us that it's pathological and crazy and dangerous after a while, we accommodate to it.

Speaker 2: 14:15

Yes, absolutely. You know you talked about your interview being spiked. Not that we're here to hold court, but what role in the last eight years has the media played in preventing this knowledge from getting to the people, in preventing this knowledge?

Speaker 3: 14:38

from getting to the people. Well, there's just this incredible fear of presenting this material. I've had so many producers talk to me about being on the show and then having them say well, someone above us said we're not doing that.

Speaker 2: 14:52

Right.

Speaker 3: 14:53

Because this has to do with the corporate-owned media.

Speaker 3: 14:56

And one of the things that the right wing has done so simply and so easily is simply bought the media. Right, it bought the truth. I don't think people realize how many of our pieces have been taken off the chessboard, or rather, how many of our institutions have essentially been co-opted from the inside I mean, well, the obvious one is the Supreme Court but in the media, I'm saying you know, liberty Media bought CNN. That's huge. Elon Musk took over Twitter, which is something I think we should have tried to block. Politico was sold to Axel Springer. My hometown paper of the Baltimore Sun was sold to Sinclair Media, which is a far right string of local TV stations. So what's happening here is the brand of CNN, the brand of Twitter, the brand of the Baltimore Sun. Okay, it's becoming a Trojan horse, right?

Speaker 3: 15:49

for these right wing points of view. So the last thing they're going to want to do is risk getting in trouble with their boss's boss by. This is my theory anyway, because when you talk to the reporters they'll say I agree with you.

Speaker 2: 16:03

It's not that they can't see reality, but they're allowed to say If I can interrupt for just a minute, you said something that I think is so spot on and I've never heard anybody else use, and I'm going to start using it. You point out that CNN, MSNBC, the different, they're brands, they are brands and they don't. The brand doesn't represent this separate entity. The brand is just another sign, or a label, if you will, from the collective power that has been purchased, and so when we jump from channel to channel, we have this illusion that, okay, now I'm going to watch something different or this different slice, but it's all part of the same slice, and I think pointing out that they are a brand is a magnificent way of getting people to realize wow, that's right.

Speaker 3: 17:17

And, by the way, this is a change for the worse. You and I maybe are probably old enough to remember when CBS News was walled off from CBS, the network, cbs, yes, network. Cbs was a company. It had to make money, ok, but CBS News was a money loser. Cbs News was a money loser, so it was assumed that the news division would lose money and that it would be completely independent editorially independent of the corporation. There was a Chinese wall there.

Speaker 3: 17:46

So when Walter Cronkite got on the air, america believed they were hearing the truth. We no longer have a shared truth. I mean, we only had news a half an hour a day. Walter Cronkite was only on 30 minutes a day. But the point is is that there was one reality we were all listening to and there wasn't a corporate corrupt influence, or at least they took steps to avoid having a corporate corrupt influence in what they were saying. Then what happened is the news became business and the news had to make money. And if the news was losing money, that's why CNN went for sale, that's why they changed their editorial content, because they said, hey, we're losing money to Fox and to these other things. So, once they became businesses, well, first of all, then, what drives businesses becomes king? Not what's true, but also businesses can be bought, and this is what's so insidious. You know a lot of people don't know this, but do you know who the number two investor in Twitter is after Elon Musk? I do not, saudi Arabia. So what does that make you think?

Speaker 2: 18:54

wow, it is a like a nauseating feeling in my gut exactly.

Speaker 3: 19:00

They're allied with russia, as is now elon musk, now that he's allied himself formally with um trump. But he's been uh tweeting anti-ukraine stuff and ukraine peace plans and all this stuff for for eons. So I think he's always been. He's always been on Putin's team for a while. But the point is, the reason he didn't have enough money to buy it is because he put up Tesla stock and then Tesla stock tanked and we thought, great, he's not going to be able to buy Twitter. And he's like, oh, no problem, he just went to the trader nation could back him up and they have infinite money. And that's the point the bad guys have infinite money.

Speaker 2: 19:38

And so, dr Gardner, I think we could say that Elon Musk himself is a brand. You know, when we think of Twitter, we think of Elon Musk on Twitter, but, as you point out, there are faces and very different, but all have come together for the same purpose and are providing the funds to the brand, but also they're the ones that are going to profit from the propaganda.

Speaker 3: 20:10

Yes, in other words, Twitter doesn't have to make a profit. The Saudis don't care if Twitter makes a profit.

Speaker 2: 20:17

And that's such an important point too, because I've seen so many people and this is something that I got my head around pretty early. People were looking and saying, oh yeah, twitter's losing money. Look at this, ha ha ha. And I knew that that wasn't the sign that they were thinking it was. That wasn't the good thing. It didn't matter that Twitter itself was losing money, because there was more than enough money to do what they want to do.

Speaker 3: 20:46

Well, and also if they steal the country, that's a lot of money.

Speaker 2: 20:51

That's a whole bunch of money, and that's essentially how Vladimir Putin has amassed his wealth he's just robbed people of their money.

Speaker 3: 21:01

Think of it as an investment. It's an investment Buying Twitter is an investment in being able to rob the entire country blind.

Speaker 2: 21:07

Yes, absolutely. You know I've got to ask this question because I've not watched every single podcast that you've done, so maybe you've addressed this, but I've not seen the question asked of you. Have you received threats or have you been concerned for your safety as a result of being so outspoken about Trump?

Speaker 3: 21:35

I appreciate your asking that. Well, the answer is yes. The biggest spike I had in threats was when I appeared on Jesse Waters. This was about five years ago. It's still online, by the way, if you ever want to see it. I have to say he really is someone who uses that Gish Gallop that they talked about. He just floods the zone with lies, he interrupts you and he floods the zone with four different lies, and so you're totally befuddled because you don't know which lie to even chase Right, and none of them really related to what you were saying, and he interrupted you in the middle. Anyway, I thought I did pretty good Right, but the problem was after that I got death threats, harassing you know, emails, voicemails at one in the morning and, worst of all, people started putting one star ratings on my practice, so my practice started going down.

Speaker 3: 22:25

I think what's happened, too is things have gotten much worse since then. There is an air of intimidation that is in the air now. People are very afraid of retaliation. I've seen a lot of mental health professionals that were very is in the air now. People are very afraid of retaliation. I've seen a lot of mental health professionals that were very active in the movement last time around, say you know what, I'm just not up for it this time. You know I got in trouble. I don't want to get in trouble at work, I don't want to lose patience, I don't want to be harassed. So it's. You really can see how fascism can creep into a society and how people begin to kind of fold.

Speaker 3: 22:56

They can step back. You know most 80% of it is voluntary. You know people just decide not to put a foot forward, not to be the nail that sticks out. And so I just was really struck by how many people who were all gung-ho a few years ago I would understand if they said, look, I'm just exhausted. But what they said is I'm scared.

Speaker 2: 23:19

Yes, I want to thank you so much for pointing that out, because that's kind of, I guess, of the things that I talk about. That's kind of my main thrust and I haven't worded it like you just did, saying most of it is voluntary. But I come at it from different ways, not nearly as effective as just saying most of it is voluntary. But if we can get the voters to realize it's not something that somebody comes to your door initially and takes from you, it's something you offer up through your just giving in, and if we can just not give in, if we can keep from letting our fear become the lone guide for our decisions and be aware of the consequences of letting that happen.

Speaker 3: 24:21

There's 80% that you talk about that is voluntary, that we can dial the numbers way back on, yeah, yeah, Well, you know, look, I appreciate, Jack, that you're a voice of the resistance and you know that word resistance, if we lose this election, is going to start to take on a whole new meaning, like a la French resistance it's going to get a lot more serious and a lot more grim if it goes that way it is and I think that's a.

Speaker 2: 24:54

I don't know if you have detected this before, but every now and then I'll kind of pepper some of my posts. I don't hit it directly, but I want to get people kind of thinking about it, about it because I think it's something that's so scary to think about, that most people, when the thought starts to come, they just close it, they don't want to think about it, and yet I think it's something that needs to be factored into the long-term plan about what possibilities exist. So you, as a clinical psychologist, what do you say about the health, the mental health aspect of factoring that in and being aware of that possibility as we fight?

Speaker 3: 25:44

I think that a lot of people's mental health is under tremendous strain. I think people are truly terrified. Almost everybody I know does understand exactly what's at stake, that we're really talking about surrendering all of our rights. I mean, that's really the amazing thing about this election. I remember someone who was French once told me well, we voluntarily gave up all of our democratic institutions. We're basically voluntarily giving up our democracy, giving up our rights. I don't believe that they will ever allow us to have another free and fair election if they get into the White House.

Speaker 3: 26:20

So this could be the last time you ever really vote. You know Putin has elections, but he always manages to win by 90%. I'm afraid that that will be the future of our elections If we fail here. That's, I'm afraid, what's going to happen. Listen, I would like to come back on the show again. Fantastic. It doesn't have to be a special occasion.

Speaker 2: 26:43

What can people do in terms of finding out more about this?

Speaker 3: 26:48

Oh, thank you for asking Psychopacorg. Psychopacorg is the website Psychopacorg.

Speaker 2: 26:55

Psychopacorg is the website Psychopacorg.

Speaker 3: 26:57

And you know, of course, people, when they're doing these things, they always, you know, beg for money, beg for funds, say please contribute. I think it'll be therapeutic for you to contribute. I'll tell you why Because everyone I know is really suffering from this horrible feeling of helplessness. Right, this feeling of yes, yes, it's true, he's a monster. Feeling of helplessness. Right, this feeling of yes, yes, it's true, he's a monster, yes, he's a malignant narcissist. But what can you do? How can you get that message to the people who need to hear it? That's the genius of Georgia's psychopath, anti-psychopath, or the full name, anti-psychopath pack, short, anti-psychopath for short. But that's the genius of it is because it's getting the message, the truth about his malignant narcissism and his dangerousness to the people who, ultimately, will make the decision as to whether we live in hell. They'll basically make the decision whether we enter the apocalypse or the age of Aquarius.

Speaker 2: 27:51

Yes, I want to mention real quick about what you said about the contribution. It's almost to the point with Trump now that I don't think so much of it as a contribution as I do. It's a personal investment in our future. Anything that we offer up in the aid of fighting this to win the election Absolutely it's not the standard here. I'll give you this it's an investment in our future.

Speaker 3: 28:21

Because the alternative is to lose everything.

Speaker 2: 28:24

Yes, Dr Gartner, I know you've got to go. You've got your own podcast coming up soon. It's been an honor, sir. I'd love to have you back on Anytime and we will talk again soon. I hope so All.