{"id":314826,"date":"2026-04-13T12:00:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T11:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=314826"},"modified":"2026-04-08T19:41:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T18:41:55","slug":"trump-and-netanyahu-two-madmen-playing-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/04\/trump-and-netanyahu-two-madmen-playing-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Netanyahu: Two Madmen Playing God"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Madmen Trump and Netanyahu – AI-generated image by TFF<\/p><\/div>\n

When deranged leaders invoke divine catastrophe as a political instrument, it is not only their enemies who are consumed. Unless they are stopped, we will all be victims of these two psychopaths.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

6 Apr 2026 – <\/em>Here is Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0Easter message<\/a>\u00a0to the world:<\/p>\n

Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin\u2019 Strait, you crazy bastards, or you\u2019ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0and his partner in\u00a0war crimes<\/a>,\u00a0Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a>, are jointly waging a war of murderous aggression against Iran, a nation of 90 million people. They are in the grip of three cascading pathologies. The first is personality: both are malignant narcissists. The second is the arrogance of power: men who possess the power to command nuclear annihilation and feel, in consequence, no restraint. The third, and most dangerous of all, is religious delusion: two men who believe, and are told daily by those around them, that they are messiahs doing God\u2019s work. Each pathology exacerbates the others, so that together they put the world in unprecedented danger.<\/p>\n

The result is a glorification of violence not seen since the Nazi leaders. The question is whether the world\u2019s few grownups\u2014responsible national leaders who remain committed to\u00a0international law<\/a>\u00a0and are willing to say so\u2014can restrain them. It will not be easy, but they must try.<\/p>\n

Let us start with the underlying psychological disorder. Malignant narcissism is a clinical term, not an insult. The social psychologist\u00a0Erich Fromm coined the phrase<\/a>\u00a0in 1964 to describe\u00a0Adolf Hitler<\/a>, as a merger of pathological grandiosity, psychopathy, paranoia, and antisocial personality into a single character structure. The malignant narcissist is not merely vain. He is structurally incapable of genuine empathy, constitutionally immune to guilt, and driven by paranoid conviction that enemies surround him and must be destroyed. Already back in 2017,\u00a0psychologist John Garnter<\/a>\u00a0and many other professionals were warning of Trump\u2019s malignant narcissism.<\/p>\n

Several respected psychologists and psychiatrists have evaluated Trump for psychopathy using the standardized Hare Scale and have come up with scores well above the diagnostic cutoff. See, for example,\u00a0here<\/a>. Psychopathy is best characterized as a lack of conscience or compassion for other human beings.<\/p>\n

Both Trump and Netanyahu fit this profile with precision. Trump\u2019s psychopathy was on full display when US forces destroyed a civilian bridge in\u00a0Tehran<\/a>, of no military significance, with at least eight civilians killed and 95 or more injured. Trump did not grieve. He gloated and promised more destruction.\u00a0Netanyahu\u2019s Passover address<\/a>\u00a0similarly contained not one word for the dead. No pause. No shadow of doubt. Only the triumphant catalog of enemies he has destroyed.<\/p>\n

Paranoia drives the threat that Trump and Netanyahu have manufactured. Trump\u2019s own Director of National Intelligence,\u00a0Tulsi Gabbard<\/a>, testified in writing that Iran\u2019s nuclear program had been\u00a0\u201cobliterated\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and that the intelligence community \u201ccontinues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.\u201d The IAEA stated flatly there was no evidence of a bomb. Trump\u2019s own counterterrorism official\u00a0resigned in protest<\/a>, writing that \u201cwe started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.\u201d The paranoid does not need a real threat. He will make one up if he must, to match his feelings of exaggerated fear.<\/p>\n

The Machiavellianism operates without shame. Trump told the world that diplomacy was always his \u201cfirst preference,\u201d while boasting in the same breath about ripping up the nuclear deal with Iran:\u00a0\u201cI was so honored to do it. I was so proud to do it.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0He destroyed the diplomatic framework with his own hands, then blamed Iran for the wreckage. He then admitted, casually, that the war has no self-defense rationale: \u201cWe don\u2019t have to be there. We don\u2019t need their\u00a0oil<\/a>. We don\u2019t need anything they have. But we\u2019re there to help our allies.\u201d Under the UN Charter, self-defense is the only legal basis for force. Trump has confessed that no such basis exists.<\/p>\n

There is a particular deformation that power inflicts on certain personalities, and it is especially acute when the power in question is unbounded or seems to be so. With the command of nuclear arsenals, Trump and Netanyahu do not experience the world as others do. The availability of\u00a0nuclear weapons<\/a>, for these malignant narcissists, is not a burden of responsibility but an extension of their grandiose selves: I can do anything. I can level anything. Watch me. There will be no self-restraints by Netanyahu and Trump on this delusional grandiosity.<\/p>\n

Trump has completely internalized this sense of impunity. On April 1, he stood before the cameras and promised to bomb Iran \u201cback to the Stone Ages, where they belong.\u201d The phrase \u201cwhere they belong\u201d is the verdict of a man who feels divinely licensed to judge the worth of 90 million people and dehumanizes them without hesitation. He has repeatedly threatened to destroy Iran\u2019s civilian electrical infrastructure\u2014a war crime under the laws of armed conflict, announced openly as a negotiating position, to a global audience that mostly changed the channel.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu commands a state with an estimated 200 nuclear warheads, has never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and operates under no international inspection regime. He has watched Trump wield American military power with unchecked aggression and concurs that there are no consequences. The second madness feeds the third: when power faces no limit, the only remaining internal check is conscience. And the psychopath has no conscience.<\/p>\n

The lack of conscience is the most dangerous pathology of the three, because it is the one that removes the last possible internal brake. The strategist who wages an unjust war may eventually calculate that the costs exceed the gains and stop. The malignant narcissist who wages war for ego may eventually exhaust the ego\u2019s demands and stop. The psychopath escalates because there are no limits.<\/p>\n

And, if you can believe, it gets even worse. Both Trump and Netanyahu are would-be messiahs. They are self-proclaimed agents of God. For them, stopping the war on Iran would mean God was wrong. And the self-proclaimed messiah cannot be wrong, either, because the messiah and God have become, in the grandiose psyche, effectively the same.<\/p>\n

Both Trump and Netanyahu have claimed this messianic identity explicitly. Trump has called himself \u201cthe chosen one.\u201d Regarding the assassination attempt on Trump in 2024, he declared, \u201cI felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I \u2060was saved by God to make America great again.\u201d Netanyahu, in his address on the eve of Passover, did not merely invoke God. He appropriated God\u2019s role in the Exodus narrative\u2014enumerating ten \u201caccomplishments\u201d of what he calls the \u201cWar of Redemption\u201d and naming each one a plague. The killing of Ayatollah Khamenei he named the \u201cPlague of the Firstborn.\u201d He then warned the world:<\/p>\n

After the ten plagues of Egypt, I remind you that Pharaoh still tried to harm the People of Israel, and we all know how that ended.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the Book of Exodus, that ending is the drowning of Pharaoh\u2019s entire army. Netanyahu was threatening the annihilation of Iran, on television, in the language of holy scripture.<\/p>\n

Surrounding each of these men is a court of flatterers and fanatics whose function is to sustain the delusion and prevent reality from entering their consciousness.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s Court: Hegseth, Huckabee, and the Christian Nationalists<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, has turned the\u00a0Pentagon<\/a>\u00a0into a theater of holy war. He sports a Jerusalem Cross tattoo on his chest and the words \u201cDeus Vult<\/em>,\u201d \u201cGod Wills It,\u201d the battle cry of the medieval Crusades, on his arm. He hosts monthly Christian worship services in the Pentagon\u2019s auditorium. He has asked the American people to pray \u201cevery day, on bended knee\u201d for military victory in the Middle East \u201cin the name of Jesus Christ.\u201d At one of these services,\u00a0he prayed aloud<\/a>\u00a0for US troops to inflict:<\/p>\n

Overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy \u2026 We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At a press briefing on the Iran war, Hegseth said the\u00a0United States<\/a>\u00a0\u201cnegotiates with bombs.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0He described Iran\u2019s leaders as \u201creligious fanatics\u201d seeking nuclear capability for \u201csome religious Armageddon,\u201d while presiding over monthly prayer services at the Pentagon and declaring that \u201cthe providence of our almighty God is there protecting those troops.\u201d He appears to have no awareness of the mirror he is holding up. A defense secretary who prays for \u201coverwhelming violence\u201d in the name of Jesus, while calling his enemies religious fanatics, has defined the word \u201cprojection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Huckabee<\/a>, the US Ambassador to Israel, provides the theological architecture. A Baptist minister and avid Christian Zionist, Huckabee believes the Israel-Iran conflict is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy\u2014a necessary step toward the Rapture and the second coming of Christ. He sent Trump a message\u2014which Trump then posted on social media\u2014comparing the moment to Truman in 1945 and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, urging Trump to listen to \u201cHIS voice,\u201d meaning God.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Huckabee was asked about the biblical land grant stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates\u2014encompassing\u00a0Lebanon<\/a>,\u00a0Syria<\/a>, Jordan, and parts of\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/a>\u00a0and Iraq\u2014and whether Israel had a divine right to it all. His answer was direct: \u201cIt would be fine if they took it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s far-right Finance Minister Smotrich, for his part,\u00a0posted on social media<\/a>: \u201cI \"\" <\/a>Huckabee.\u201d Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee, whose organization Christians United for Israel has been a major driver of US evangelical support for Israel\u2019s wars, looked at the Iran war and said simply: \u201cProphetically, we\u2019re right on cue<\/a>.\u201d Franklin Graham, at a\u00a0White House<\/a>\u00a0Easter prayer service,\u00a0fed Trump\u2019s messianic delusions<\/a>: \u201cToday the Iranians, the wicked regime of this government, wants to kill every Jew and destroy them with an atomic fire. But you have raised up President Trump. You\u2019ve raised him up for such a time as this. And Father, we pray that you\u2019ll give him victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s Court: Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and the Messianic Settlers<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the Israeli side, the inner court is composed of two figures whose radicalism is so extreme that they were considered political pariahs until Netanyahu used their votes to stay in power. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the National Security Minister, is an admirer of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was designated a terrorist organization. Bezalel Smotrich, the Finance Minister, draws his ideology from Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, who taught that Israel\u2019s 1967 military victory was divinely mandated and that the settlement of Palestinian territory is the will of God. Together, they hold 20 seats in Netanyahu\u2019s 67-seat coalition. They do not merely advise the prime minister, they share in his messianic beliefs and vision.<\/p>\n

Ben-Gvir has used his control of the Israeli police to enable settler paramilitaries operating against\u00a0Palestinians<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0West Bank<\/a>. He has consistently blocked ceasefire negotiations and has openly claimed credit for delaying them. He pushed for Jewish ritual rights on the Temple Mount in defiance of a status quo maintained for decades, a move Israeli security officials warned would lead directly to bloodshed.\u00a0In August 2023 he declared<\/a>: \u201cMy right, and my wife\u2019s and my children\u2019s right to get around on the roads in Judea and Samaria, is more important than the right to movement for Arabs.\u201d The\u00a0United Kingdom<\/a>, Canada, Australia,\u00a0New Zealand<\/a>, Norway, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and\u00a0Spain<\/a>\u00a0have all sanctioned him for inciting violence, yet the United States, under\u00a0Marco Rubio<\/a>, defended Ben-Gvir and criticized those\u00a0sanctions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Smotrich is the more methodical of the two: less theatrical and more dangerous. He has systematically transferred civilian governance of the West Bank from the Israeli military to his own ministry, channeling hundreds of millions of shekels to settler\u00a0infrastructure<\/a>\u00a0while Palestinian Authority budgets are deliberately strangled. He has directed his office to formulate \u201can operational plan for applying sovereignty\u201d over the West Bank. During the Iran war, he called for Israel to annex southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, declaring that the war \u201cneeds to end with a different reality entirely.\u201d Smotrich\u2019s ideology draws on Kook\u2019s teaching that the settlement enterprise is not political but sacred\u2014a divine obligation that must be completed regardless of international law,\u00a0Palestinian rights<\/a>, or the opinion of the world. The 1967 borders, in this theology, are not a temporary military reality. They are God\u2019s unfinished business.<\/p>\n

Neither Ben-Gvir nor Smotrich was anything more than a fringe extremist before Netanyahu legitimized them by bringing them into government and his inner court. He gave them power over Israeli society, and they gave him the religious-nationalist firepower to call his wars a divine mission.<\/p>\n

Into this landscape of holy war, one voice has spoken with world-saving grace and clarity. Pope Leo XIV has consistently called for an end to the violence. During a Holy Thursday Mass in Rome,\u00a0he addressed<\/a>\u00a0the arrogance of power:<\/p>\n

We tend to consider ourselves powerful when we dominate, victorious when we destroy our equals, great when we are feared. God has given us an example \u2014 not of how to dominate, but of how to liberate; not of how to destroy life, but of how to give it.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On Palm Sunday, the pope was again direct,\u00a0saying<\/a>\u00a0that Jesus \u201cdoes not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.\u201d Hegseth followed up by holding another worship service at the Pentagon, where he again prayed for \u201coverwhelming violence\u201d in Christ\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

Professor John Mearsheimer\u00a0has stated precisely<\/a>\u00a0that the crimes now being committed by Trump and Netanyahu are the same crimes for which the Nazi leadership was hanged at Nuremberg: aggressive war, annexation of foreign territory, deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, and collective punishment. This is not rhetorical excess. These are legal categories. The Nuremberg Tribunal called the crime of aggression the \u201csupreme international crime\u201d\u2014the one that \u201ccontains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole\u201d\u2014because it is the crime that makes all the other crimes possible. These men have confessed to it, publicly, in speeches carried by international broadcasters.<\/p>\n

The institutional mechanisms that exist to prevent exactly this kind of catastrophe, including the UN Security Council, the\u00a0International Criminal Court<\/a>, the non-proliferation regime, and the laws of armed conflict, are being actively subverted by the United States.<\/p>\n

And yet the world\u2019s grownups must try to stop the madness. The multilateral effort in Islamabad, including the foreign ministers of\u00a0Pakistan<\/a>,\u00a0Turkey<\/a>, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, working alongside the China-Pakistan five-point peace initiative, is an important start. It should be joined by the full weight of the BRICS nations, the UN General Assembly, and every state that wishes to live in a world governed by rules rather than by the delusions of two malignant narcissists.<\/p>\n

When deranged leaders invoke divine catastrophe as a political instrument, it is not only their enemies who are consumed. We will all be the victims of Netanyahu\u2019s plagues and Trump\u2019s bombing of Iran to the stone ages, unless other leaders place limits on these two madmen.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia\u2019s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has served as Special Adviser to three UN Secretaries-General [Kofi Annan (2001-7), Ban Ki-moon (2008-16), and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres. His books include <\/em>The End of Poverty<\/a>, Common Wealth<\/a>, The Age of Sustainable Development<\/a>, Building the New American Economy<\/a>, and most recently,<\/em> A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism<\/a>. Sachs was also an advisor to the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as to the first president of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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