An expert on hostage negotiations warned that Donald Trump's behavior will only grow more extreme as his lifetime of misdeeds is exposed.
The former president has been indicted four times on 91 criminal charges, found liable for fraud and sexual abuse in two separate cases and impeached twice, but Dr. Mark Goulston, a psychiatrist and former FBI hostage negotiation trainer, told Salon that Trump is most dangerous when he feels powerless.
"Trump alternates between being a malignant, malicious narcissist and a sociopath," Goulston said. "From his narcissist side, he is all about control and power and the two things that trigger his rage and reckless abandon are when he is feeling out of control and powerless. When that happens, he is like a mortally wounded animal, which can be the most vicious and dangerous animal of all."
That danger grows as his business empire is threatened by the New York fraud case, and Goulston suspects Trump has been hiding other crimes and misbehavior dating back to his younger years.
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"From the sociopath side, the more he has to hide, the more he has to fear," Goulston said. "He has gotten away with so many hidden things for so long, that he has been able to manage the fear of them being exposed. But now where so many hidden things from so many directions are coming at him, the fear and paranoia he is experiencing is more than he can manage. Hiding things effectively was for a much younger, sociopathically agile Trump."
Goulston wondered whether Trump's age and worsening psychological state could push him so far to the extreme that even his strongest supporters would be repelled.
"I believe he could be pushed over the edge to truly outrageous behavior that even some of his base would see as too extreme," he said. "If someone came forth with the threat of exposure of things, without specifically naming them, that go back to his college years, his teens and before (because this is a lifelong pattern of behavior)."
