My husband tells me he read an interesting article on facebook. If he could find it he would send it to me and I would refer you to it.
The article was written by a psychologist who explained how the person who got played was not Mamdami, but Trump.
By cleverly, politely and persistently refusing the narcissist (Trump is THAT, not a sociopath) the fawning Trump has come to expect, Mamdami lured Trump into greater and greater need for attention and approval, until Trump became willing to give in to the younger man. Mamdami didn't yield a thing. He held his ground and his boundaries without being defensive or brash.
Trump didn't recognize that as strength. He doesn't know what strength looks or feels like. He just yielded to it, because Trump is a man with catastrophic flaws, no character, and swallowing needs.
Thirty Minutes in the Lion’s Den: The Interview Trump Thought He Controlled
White Rose USA — November
There’s a strange thing that happens when you watch the full thirty-minute interview instead of the clipped version the internet tosses around. The edges soften. The masks slip. And you start to see the actual geometry of the interaction — where power sits, where insecurity leaks, where the tone changes, where the truth speaks by accident. The viral clip makes it look like a moment. The full meeting reveals a dynamic.
This wasn’t a showdown. It wasn’t a humiliation. It wasn’t a triumph for either man. It was something far more revealing: a case study in how a bully behaves when he can’t rely on fear, and how a principled politician behaves when he refuses the role of the victim.
The meeting begins as all Trump meetings do — with noise.
The first five minutes are pure Trump: monologues disguised as greetings, numbers inflated beyond physics, scattered recollections of the 1980s like the era froze and preserved him in amber. You can practically hear his brain flipping through its greatest hits, trying to set the tone: This is my room. My chair. My story.
But Mamdani doesn’t react to any of it. And that is the first hinge of the meeting.
A man like Trump needs emotional feedback to function. Fear works. Flattery works. Even anger works. Mamdani gives him nothing. He sits there with the calm of someone who refuses to let the other person set the emotional tempo. It’s a small thing, but with Trump, it’s enough to break the cycle.
Then comes the shift — the “gracious Trump” phase.
People mistake this for maturity or diplomacy. It’s not. It’s a reflex Trump only deploys when he can’t dominate the room. The tone goes soft, the eyebrows lift, the compliments come out in forced, syrupy bursts.
“You’re doing great work.” “New York is lucky to have you.” “You’re a very smart guy.”
It sounds statesmanlike until you remember the same man called him a communist threat two weeks earlier. What’s happening here isn’t respect — it’s adaptation. A chameleon trying to match the color of the wall.
Trump is gracious when graciousness benefits Trump.
As Mamdani shifts to policy, Trump drifts into autobiography.
This is the most telling stretch — minutes twelve to eighteen. Mamdani tries to talk like a mayor-elect:
transit
housing
Rikers
federal cooperation
immigrant protections
Real issues, real stakes, real governance.
Trump responds by vanishing into his own mythology. Crime statistics from memory that don’t exist. Grievances about prosecutors. Stories from “the old days.” Complaints about how unfairly he’s been treated.
It’s not sabotage — it’s incapacity. Mamdani is speaking a civic language Trump’s brain can’t decode.
They aren’t having the same conversation. They aren’t even on the same continent.
Then comes the moment everyone’s dissecting — the “fascistic tendencies” line.
And yes, it happened in the room, not after. Mamdani doesn’t weaponize the word. He doesn’t turn it into a headline. He does something more dangerous: he analytically names the pattern.
Immigrant raids. Political retribution. Targeting dissent. Erosion of checks and balances. Threats against the judiciary.
He lays out the evidence and names the behavior: fascistic tendencies.
Trump nods and smiles like someone being told he has an excellent golf swing.
It’s not bravado. It’s not denial. It’s something almost sadder: he doesn’t understand the language of critique unless it’s blunt and emotional. Mamdani moved the discussion into the realm of political analysis, and Trump’s instincts don’t live there. So he simply… accepts it. Not because he agrees, but because he can’t absorb what the words actually mean.
The last ten minutes are the clearest portrait of Trump’s psyche.
Once Mamdani refuses to bend, Trump compensates by overcorrecting into flattery:
“You’re going to surprise people.” “I feel very comfortable with you.” “We’re going to get along great.”
It’s dominance disguised as benevolence. When Trump can’t conquer, he tries to adopt. He folds the other person into his narrative: You and I are the same. We’re allies. You approve of me. I approve of you.
It’s a kind of political camouflage — digest the threat by complimenting it.
Mamdani doesn’t take the bait.
He doesn’t fight. He doesn’t flatter. He just continues speaking plainly.
Which leaves Trump in the one position he hates most: performing civility for an audience that isn’t fooled.
What the meeting really showed
The full interview isn’t about Mamdani calling Trump a fascist. It’s not about Trump pretending to be gracious. It’s not about a progressive mayor meeting an authoritarian president.
What the meeting showed is simpler and more damning:
Trump is only powerful when the room fears him. Take the fear away, and he becomes oddly gentle, strangely polite, and completely unable to dominate the conversation.
People think tyrants rage because they’re strong. But the truth is they only rage when they know the room will absorb it.
Mamdani didn’t absorb it. So Trump didn’t rage.
He folded. Nicely. Neatly. Like a man who knows the cameras are watching and doesn’t want the world to see what he looks like when the mask cracks.
And if there’s a lesson here for the rest of the country, it’s this:
Fear is the oxygen of authoritarianism. Take it away, and even a strongman starts to sound like a man.
Being a NYC girl originally…. We NYC people don’t fall for the illusions… nor will the world! Blasting the world with peace, kindness, compassion, and abundance of love! ❤️☮️🕉️🙏🏼❤️
Thanks for sharing your insight, Sigi. It is hard for me across the country in Oregon to know intricacies. But, it seems Mamdani has the upper hand in the brains dept.
We NYC people ( though I live in CA now plus 40 other places in this amazing world) will stand for peace, justice and freedom for ALL! Sending you and all the world so much love!❤️🕯️☮️🕉️🙏🏼❤️
Trump is following the old adage, Keep your friends close and your enemies, and detractors, closer. Then again, one wonders if Trump has any true friends.
I am so grateful for your clarity! I also think it’s so important to remember how calculating and manipulative he is and I can see how anyone that wavers on this can be easily swayed by his clever acting. Heck for a minute I wanted to believe it-looking for any hope that there may be some decency in there.
Tough room whoever wherever you go. May truth prevail and highest love win. Thanks for your booster rockets and holy persistence. We will soon enough see where it goes next.
I read a piece that said Mamdani did what no other Democrat has been able to do since 2016, which was to disarm Trump, while standing strong on his values, in order to meet the needs of the people, and I agree. There is no doubt this was supposed to be a witch hunt of mass proportions, with the House meeting just prior to Mamdani's arrival in D.C. to vote on and denounce the “evils” of socialism. The fact that Trump could admit that Mamdani has good policies, and that he could live in a New York with him as Mayor, and was even defending him, was like a pin popping the balloon of all of the Republican fear mongering propoganda around his campaign and win, leaving many Conservatives speechless as it deflated all of their attacks prior. Mamdani was brilliant and a statesman. From what I've seen and read, hardly any one is falling for Trump's “charm” but instead are respecting Mamdani more for walking into the lion's den, and Trump then behaving like a pussy cat, especially when you compare that to how Trump treated Zelenski, as both men came for the federal funding of their citizens. Again, I havent seen anyone falling for Trump's “charm.”
"Trump is a master at making a deal..." NO - I disagree completely! You give him way too much credit and power. He is a nutty psychopath and will turn on Mamdani in a dime.
Magician? Maybe - more like a carnival barker / snake oil salesman.
Definitely not THIS lefty! Zoran was smart. Dementia Donald is a malignant narcissist with sadistic tendencies, at least one stroke, rapidly declining mental faculties, and the nuclear codes.
I dont know what makes me sicker today… Mandami promising Trump ratings and popularity or Trump/Putins 12 Point plan to dilute and distinguish Ukraine.
Regarding Bill Maher saying DT is sane. Yes, what he has (psychopathology) is not diagnosed as a mental illness, it is called a personality disorder. Psychopaths are without conscience or the ability to feel, or imagine, the feelings of others. Or to care. Again, a Personality Disorder, and there is no treatment for them. Mental illnesses can be treated, either with medication or talk therapy, usually both. Personality Disorders have no medication that works on them and usually they don't ever get to a mental health professional because they think they are fine and it's everyone else that's screwed up. Mentally Ill people may think that too, but their symptoms are such that they mess up real bad and get into treatment whether they want to or not.
Narcissism is a personality disorder. Several very capable high profile professionals have recognized that Donald Trump exhibits many of the symptoms of this disorder.
And Trump takes drugs, stimulants to be specific, Adderall to be exact.
Sometimes they take stuff to alleviate some of their symptoms, but those drugs do not address the psychopathology or the narcissism. He probably also has Attention Deficit Disorder. Stimulants work backwards on that condition -- they give kids with that disorder Ritalin, which is also a stimulant which but, strangely, calms them down and helps them to focus. Of course he is also stupid and a jerk but those are more informal diagnoses and definitely untreatable. :-)
Since Trump's company does business in NYC, he wants to be on the mayor's good side, so hopefully his company gets favorable treatment. The charm and schmoozing are part of what King-Con does.
Absolutely. I also recalled Bill Maher (someone I thought immune to such an easily detected sociopath) being fooled by the Orange One. But no, it turns out he loves to be fawned over by a powerful man as much as anyone. Let’s hope Mamdani isn’t a fool.
Isn’t charm a defining characteristic of a sociopath?
yep
My husband tells me he read an interesting article on facebook. If he could find it he would send it to me and I would refer you to it.
The article was written by a psychologist who explained how the person who got played was not Mamdami, but Trump.
By cleverly, politely and persistently refusing the narcissist (Trump is THAT, not a sociopath) the fawning Trump has come to expect, Mamdami lured Trump into greater and greater need for attention and approval, until Trump became willing to give in to the younger man. Mamdami didn't yield a thing. He held his ground and his boundaries without being defensive or brash.
Trump didn't recognize that as strength. He doesn't know what strength looks or feels like. He just yielded to it, because Trump is a man with catastrophic flaws, no character, and swallowing needs.
Thirty minutes in the Lion’s Den: The Interview Trump Thought He Controlled
US News
(https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePeoplesPress/?f=flair_name%3A%22US%20News%22)
Thirty Minutes in the Lion’s Den: The Interview Trump Thought He Controlled
White Rose USA — November
There’s a strange thing that happens when you watch the full thirty-minute interview instead of the clipped version the internet tosses around. The edges soften. The masks slip. And you start to see the actual geometry of the interaction — where power sits, where insecurity leaks, where the tone changes, where the truth speaks by accident. The viral clip makes it look like a moment. The full meeting reveals a dynamic.
This wasn’t a showdown. It wasn’t a humiliation. It wasn’t a triumph for either man. It was something far more revealing: a case study in how a bully behaves when he can’t rely on fear, and how a principled politician behaves when he refuses the role of the victim.
The meeting begins as all Trump meetings do — with noise.
The first five minutes are pure Trump: monologues disguised as greetings, numbers inflated beyond physics, scattered recollections of the 1980s like the era froze and preserved him in amber. You can practically hear his brain flipping through its greatest hits, trying to set the tone: This is my room. My chair. My story.
But Mamdani doesn’t react to any of it. And that is the first hinge of the meeting.
A man like Trump needs emotional feedback to function. Fear works. Flattery works. Even anger works. Mamdani gives him nothing. He sits there with the calm of someone who refuses to let the other person set the emotional tempo. It’s a small thing, but with Trump, it’s enough to break the cycle.
Then comes the shift — the “gracious Trump” phase.
People mistake this for maturity or diplomacy. It’s not. It’s a reflex Trump only deploys when he can’t dominate the room. The tone goes soft, the eyebrows lift, the compliments come out in forced, syrupy bursts.
“You’re doing great work.” “New York is lucky to have you.” “You’re a very smart guy.”
It sounds statesmanlike until you remember the same man called him a communist threat two weeks earlier. What’s happening here isn’t respect — it’s adaptation. A chameleon trying to match the color of the wall.
Trump is gracious when graciousness benefits Trump.
As Mamdani shifts to policy, Trump drifts into autobiography.
This is the most telling stretch — minutes twelve to eighteen. Mamdani tries to talk like a mayor-elect:
transit
housing
Rikers
federal cooperation
immigrant protections
Real issues, real stakes, real governance.
Trump responds by vanishing into his own mythology. Crime statistics from memory that don’t exist. Grievances about prosecutors. Stories from “the old days.” Complaints about how unfairly he’s been treated.
It’s not sabotage — it’s incapacity. Mamdani is speaking a civic language Trump’s brain can’t decode.
They aren’t having the same conversation. They aren’t even on the same continent.
Then comes the moment everyone’s dissecting — the “fascistic tendencies” line.
And yes, it happened in the room, not after. Mamdani doesn’t weaponize the word. He doesn’t turn it into a headline. He does something more dangerous: he analytically names the pattern.
Immigrant raids. Political retribution. Targeting dissent. Erosion of checks and balances. Threats against the judiciary.
He lays out the evidence and names the behavior: fascistic tendencies.
Trump nods and smiles like someone being told he has an excellent golf swing.
It’s not bravado. It’s not denial. It’s something almost sadder: he doesn’t understand the language of critique unless it’s blunt and emotional. Mamdani moved the discussion into the realm of political analysis, and Trump’s instincts don’t live there. So he simply… accepts it. Not because he agrees, but because he can’t absorb what the words actually mean.
The last ten minutes are the clearest portrait of Trump’s psyche.
Once Mamdani refuses to bend, Trump compensates by overcorrecting into flattery:
“You’re going to surprise people.” “I feel very comfortable with you.” “We’re going to get along great.”
It’s dominance disguised as benevolence. When Trump can’t conquer, he tries to adopt. He folds the other person into his narrative: You and I are the same. We’re allies. You approve of me. I approve of you.
It’s a kind of political camouflage — digest the threat by complimenting it.
Mamdani doesn’t take the bait.
He doesn’t fight. He doesn’t flatter. He just continues speaking plainly.
Which leaves Trump in the one position he hates most: performing civility for an audience that isn’t fooled.
What the meeting really showed
The full interview isn’t about Mamdani calling Trump a fascist. It’s not about Trump pretending to be gracious. It’s not about a progressive mayor meeting an authoritarian president.
What the meeting showed is simpler and more damning:
Trump is only powerful when the room fears him. Take the fear away, and he becomes oddly gentle, strangely polite, and completely unable to dominate the conversation.
People think tyrants rage because they’re strong. But the truth is they only rage when they know the room will absorb it.
Mamdani didn’t absorb it. So Trump didn’t rage.
He folded. Nicely. Neatly. Like a man who knows the cameras are watching and doesn’t want the world to see what he looks like when the mask cracks.
And if there’s a lesson here for the rest of the country, it’s this:
Fear is the oxygen of authoritarianism. Take it away, and even a strongman starts to sound like a man.
Spot on!! Thank you!!!
What a rich analysis, thank you for this.
My sentiments exactly.
Being a NYC girl originally…. We NYC people don’t fall for the illusions… nor will the world! Blasting the world with peace, kindness, compassion, and abundance of love! ❤️☮️🕉️🙏🏼❤️
Thanks for sharing your insight, Sigi. It is hard for me across the country in Oregon to know intricacies. But, it seems Mamdani has the upper hand in the brains dept.
We NYC people ( though I live in CA now plus 40 other places in this amazing world) will stand for peace, justice and freedom for ALL! Sending you and all the world so much love!❤️🕯️☮️🕉️🙏🏼❤️
🙌🏽🕊️❤️
I totally agree! Trump is a master manipulator, con artist and a malignant narcissist. Never trust anything he says.
Trump is following the old adage, Keep your friends close and your enemies, and detractors, closer. Then again, one wonders if Trump has any true friends.
Yes, malignant narcissists are charming. Incredibly so.
I barely survived divorcing one and now live to tell the tale.
Their devastation goes deep and wide and lasts for generations.
They are dangerous psychopaths. Make no mistake. Ignore the charm or you're lost.
I am so grateful for your clarity! I also think it’s so important to remember how calculating and manipulative he is and I can see how anyone that wavers on this can be easily swayed by his clever acting. Heck for a minute I wanted to believe it-looking for any hope that there may be some decency in there.
Tough room whoever wherever you go. May truth prevail and highest love win. Thanks for your booster rockets and holy persistence. We will soon enough see where it goes next.
I read a piece that said Mamdani did what no other Democrat has been able to do since 2016, which was to disarm Trump, while standing strong on his values, in order to meet the needs of the people, and I agree. There is no doubt this was supposed to be a witch hunt of mass proportions, with the House meeting just prior to Mamdani's arrival in D.C. to vote on and denounce the “evils” of socialism. The fact that Trump could admit that Mamdani has good policies, and that he could live in a New York with him as Mayor, and was even defending him, was like a pin popping the balloon of all of the Republican fear mongering propoganda around his campaign and win, leaving many Conservatives speechless as it deflated all of their attacks prior. Mamdani was brilliant and a statesman. From what I've seen and read, hardly any one is falling for Trump's “charm” but instead are respecting Mamdani more for walking into the lion's den, and Trump then behaving like a pussy cat, especially when you compare that to how Trump treated Zelenski, as both men came for the federal funding of their citizens. Again, I havent seen anyone falling for Trump's “charm.”
I think you may have read the same article I just described to Marianne.
My husband found it on facebook. If you have a link to the article I would greatly appreciate if you would publish it here in a comment.
"Trump is a master at making a deal..." NO - I disagree completely! You give him way too much credit and power. He is a nutty psychopath and will turn on Mamdani in a dime.
Magician? Maybe - more like a carnival barker / snake oil salesman.
The left isn’t going to soften.
Definitely not THIS lefty! Zoran was smart. Dementia Donald is a malignant narcissist with sadistic tendencies, at least one stroke, rapidly declining mental faculties, and the nuclear codes.
For sure Beavis has something up his sleeve. He definitely can not be trusted one bit
I dont know what makes me sicker today… Mandami promising Trump ratings and popularity or Trump/Putins 12 Point plan to dilute and distinguish Ukraine.
Regarding Bill Maher saying DT is sane. Yes, what he has (psychopathology) is not diagnosed as a mental illness, it is called a personality disorder. Psychopaths are without conscience or the ability to feel, or imagine, the feelings of others. Or to care. Again, a Personality Disorder, and there is no treatment for them. Mental illnesses can be treated, either with medication or talk therapy, usually both. Personality Disorders have no medication that works on them and usually they don't ever get to a mental health professional because they think they are fine and it's everyone else that's screwed up. Mentally Ill people may think that too, but their symptoms are such that they mess up real bad and get into treatment whether they want to or not.
Interesting, thanks.
Narcissism is a personality disorder. Several very capable high profile professionals have recognized that Donald Trump exhibits many of the symptoms of this disorder.
And Trump takes drugs, stimulants to be specific, Adderall to be exact.
Sometimes they take stuff to alleviate some of their symptoms, but those drugs do not address the psychopathology or the narcissism. He probably also has Attention Deficit Disorder. Stimulants work backwards on that condition -- they give kids with that disorder Ritalin, which is also a stimulant which but, strangely, calms them down and helps them to focus. Of course he is also stupid and a jerk but those are more informal diagnoses and definitely untreatable. :-)
Since Trump's company does business in NYC, he wants to be on the mayor's good side, so hopefully his company gets favorable treatment. The charm and schmoozing are part of what King-Con does.
Love your term John: "King-Con"! So true. Joan
Absolutely. I also recalled Bill Maher (someone I thought immune to such an easily detected sociopath) being fooled by the Orange One. But no, it turns out he loves to be fawned over by a powerful man as much as anyone. Let’s hope Mamdani isn’t a fool.
I don't think he is. Just look at how he handled himself and Trumpty Dumpty.
That’s what I saw. 🎯