Trump’s Defense Plan: Just a Guy Out of Touch With Reality

Former President Donald Trump’s estranged niece, Mary Trump, once told VICE News that her uncle was the only person she’d ever met who could “gaslight himself” — and actually believe his own lies. 

Now, Trump’s freedom may depend on convincing a jury he did just that. 

Trump’s legal team is signaling plans to argue that the former president really believed all his wild falsehoods about fraud in the last presidential election, as a defense strategy in his latest criminal case over his attempts to reverse his campaign’s defeat. 

The idea essentially amounts to arguing that Trump is no crook, but just a guy divorced from reality. Normally, of course, that would be a remarkable claim from a guy who used to have the nuclear codes and is presently the frontrunner to become the GOP presidential nominee. But, of course, this is the Trump era. Nothing really surprises anymore. 

Trump pleaded not guilty during an arraignment in a federal courthouse in Washington D.C. on his third round of criminal and charges Thursday, in a case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. The case revolves around Trump’s attempt to secure a second term, despite losing the election, by whipping up his followers with fallacies about dead voters and “fake ballots” and other debunked claims. 

The new indictment specifies that Trump knew he was lying when he claimed that he would have won the election if not for all this supposedly rampant fraud. 

“These claims were false, and the defendant knew they were false,” Smith’s team of prosecutors wrote. 

The document lists several moments when Trump was told that his statements didn’t match reality. It cites an email, reportedly written by Trump advisor Jason Miller, that dismissed the Trump team’s wild-eyed fraud claims: “It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.” 

But Trump lawyer John Lauro argued on Tuesday night that there’s no way to know what Trump was really thinking. 

“I would like [the prosecutors] to try to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump believed that these allegations were false,” Lauro told Fox News. 

And some people who know Trump have said he’s able to convince himself of his own bogus nonsense, when doing so makes him feel better. 

“He’s the only person I’ve ever met who can gaslight himself,” Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist and critic of her uncle, told VICE News in November 2020, shortly after Trump lost the election and began falsely claiming he didn’t. “I don’t think he’s ever accepted the truth of the loss. I don't think he’s psychologically or emotionally capable of that.”

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney who spent 15 years at Trump’s elbow, told VICE News at the time that he agreed with Mary. 

“It’s the difference between a bullshit artist and a sociopath,” Cohen told VICE News. “Donald Trump is a sociopath, because he does believe his own bullshit.”

Regardless, the opinions of Mary Trump and Michael Cohen aren’t what will determine Trump’s fate. 

A jury in Washington D.C. will do that.