Briefings

Background Briefing: October 8, 2026

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An Expert on Psychopathic Personality Disorder Ties Trump’s Deteriorating Condition to the Crises We Face

We begin with Trump as a prisoner of an ominous psychological condition combined with the fact that narcissists don’t age well and we have an impending crisis which invites the intervention of the 25th Amendment although the means to trigger it requires the Vice President and the cabinet to act and that will not happen with that particular bunch of grovelling sycophants and toadies who surely are witnessing Trump’s descent into madness but are too cowardly to act to save the nation. Joining us to track Trump’s mental illness with the crises we are facing in Iran and with the upcoming elections is Dr. Vincent Greenwood, a licensed clinical psychologist and the founder of The Washington Center for Cognitive Therapy in Washington, DC. Having worked as a research associate and training leader at Johns Hopkins University and the National Institute of Health, he has conducted over 1,700 psychological evaluations in his career and has received advanced training in the assessment of psychopathic personality disorder. Dr. Greenwood created DutyToInform.org in 2020 to disseminate scientifically valid findings about President Trump’s personality limitations and accompanying psychological struggles and destructive behavior patterns. He has published numerous articles on his findings, including two chapters in The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, edited by Dr. Bandy X. Lee. His new book, just out, is Puppet on a String: Trump Is Ruled by an Ominous Psychological Condition.

 

Background Briefing’s Anna Leah With the Authors of Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World’s Most Powerful Industry

Then as AI proves itself again and again not to just be a threat to humanity, but to the humans behind its creation. OpenAI employees recently spoke out about security concerns in the latest model, adding another chapter to tech workers’ attempts to protest their oligarchical, at-times techno-utopian, at times techno-dystopian corporate bosses. Workers and management have fought over ideology and labor rights for decades, but the recent years have clarified a split between Silicon Valley’s pseudo-progressivism and its reality. The successes and failures of organizers and unionists have also shown that the playbooks just don’t work anymore. Background Briefing’s Anna Leah speaks to JS Tan and Clarissa Redwine, co-authors of the book Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World’s Most Powerful Industry. The pair are longtime labor rights activists, who organized in their respective workplaces and were fired for their efforts – although Clarissa laid the seeds for the country’s first recognized tech union at Kickstarter. Their book traces the history of tech workers’ labor fights and argues for innovation at the picket line as well as behind the keyboard.