At a Nebraska rally this week, President Donald Trump told supporters that losing a major American city to Iran would be "a very small price to pay" in the war he started. His niece, clinical psychologist Mary Trump, says the remark reveals a disturbing detachment from human life.
In a Substack post, Mary Trump zeroed in on a passage from Trump's Grand Island speech, delivered while he campaigned for Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts. Talking up the Iran war and promising falling prices, Trump said, "It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let him take out Los Angeles. Let him take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay and it's going to be over very soon."
Mary Trump didn't treat it as a throwaway line. She called it the suggestion that potentially millions of deaths are an acceptable cost, and diagnosed it via a layperson's read rather than a clinical finding.
"These are the words of a psychopath, someone so detached from his own humanity and everyone else's that mass death registers as merely inconvenient," she wrote.
She also argued the remarks are part of something larger, claiming her uncle is laying groundwork for martial law before the midterms. That's her speculation, and she offered no evidence beyond his rhetoric.
She challenged his economic claims as well. Trump told the crowd that oil is cheaper than under Biden and that prices will "come tumbling down." Mary Trump says the war is going badly and fuel costs are climbing. AAA data reported earlier this month put average diesel at about $6.31 a gallon, more than $2.75 above a year ago.
The rally also featured Trump doubling down on his promise of a $5,000 "Trump dividend" for every adult citizen if Republicans win the House and Senate. Mary Trump pointed to his record of unfulfilled pledges, including ending the Ukraine war on day one, a quick Iran war, repealing Obamacare, and having Mexico pay for the border wall.
Before the rally, Trump brushed off reporters' questions about his polling with Latino voters by calling them "fake news." Mary Trump described his defensiveness as the reaction of someone unable to tolerate a challenge. She also noted that he now tells supporters mail voting is fine, after years of calling it fraud-prone.
Because virtually every Republican candidate backs him, Mary Trump argued, a vote for any of them is effectively a vote for him.