"A Consummate Narcissist...Reckless, Calamitous, Indefensible" Former AG Bill Barr slams Trump over his Federal Indictment

"Our country can't be a therapy session for a troubled man like this." Corrective notes on Barr's usage of the term, ego.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr

Transcript from CBS’s Face the Nation this morning:

Robert Costa: We're joined now by William Barr. He served as attorney general under former President Trump. His book One Damn Thing After Another is now available in paperback. Good morning, Mr. Barr. Thank you for being here.

Barr: Thanks for inviting me, Bob.

Costa: Former President Trump now says, everyone except you, says this indictment is about election interference and should not have been brought. He said, you know, the indictment is total BS. That's our shorthand for what he actually said. He's also known for watching the Sunday shows, and he obviously saw your appearance on another network last Sunday. Why is he wrong about this?

Barr: Well, this is not a circumstance where he's the victim or this is government overreach. He provoked this whole problem himself. Yes, he's been the victim of unfair witch hunts in the past, but that doesn't obviate the fact that…

…he's also a fundamentally flawed person who engages in reckless conduct. And that leads to situations, calamitous situations like this, which are very destructive and hurt any political cause he's associated with.

And this was a case that entirely of his own making. He had no right to those documents. The government tried for over a year, quietly and with respect, to get them back, which was essential that they do, and he jerked them around, and he had no legal basis for keeping them. But beyond that, when he faced his subpoena, he didn't raise any legal arguments. He engaged in a course of deceitful conduct, according to the indictment. That was a clear crime if those allegations are true and was outrageous. What he did was, according to the indictment, is he took the documents out of storage, led his lawyer to believe that he'd be conducting a full search of the boxes, and then caused his lawyer to file with the court something saying that he had completed a search. How strong is the special counsel's case on obstruction, specifically? Well, it's very strong because a lot of the evidence comes from his own lawyers. And furthermore, there's evidence of him saying things that are completely incompatible with any idea that this was an innocent document dispute.

Costa: Do you believe he lied to the Justice Department?

Barr: Do I personally believe it? Yes, I do. Do you believe that he continues to claim that he has all these privileges and rights under the Presidential Records Act? Is he mischaracterizing the act? Absolutely. The legal theory by which he gets to take battle plans and sensitive national security information as his personal papers is absurd. It's just as wacky as the legal doctrine they came up with for having the vice president unilaterally determine who won the election. The whole purpose of the statute, the Presidential Records Act, was to stop presidents from taking official documents out of the White House. It was passed after Watergate. That's the whole purpose of it. And therefore it restricted what a president can take. It says it's purely private. That had nothing to do with the deliberations of government policy. Obviously, these documents are not purely private. It's obvious. And they're not even now arguing that it's purely private. What they're saying is the president just has sweeping discretion to say they are, even though they squarely, don't fall within the definition. It's an absurd argument. Do you believe if he is convicted, he should serve his prison sentence? Well, we haven't even gotten to the point of whether he's been convicted, and also if his sentence should be. I don't like the idea of a former president serving time in prison.

Costa: Republicans remain critical of the Attorney General who spoke out this week, as well as Director Ray at the FBI. They've rallied the Trump side. Are they wrong to say that this Justice Department is acting in a political way?

Barr: Well, if they're pointing to this case, I think they're wrong. I think the department had no choice but to seek those documents.

Their basic argument really isn't to defend his conduct, because Trump's conduct is indefensible.

What they're really saying is he should get a pass because Hillary Clinton got a pass six or seven years ago. Now, I think that's not a frivolous argument, but I'm not sure that's true. I think if you want to restore the rule of law and equal justice, you don't do it by further derogating from justice. You do it by applying the right standard here. And that's not unfair to Trump, because this is not a case where Trump is innocent and being unfairly hounded. He committed the crime, or if he did commit the crime, it's not unfair to hold him to that standard.

Costa: You say Trump's alleged conduct is indefensible. So many Republicans continue to defend him. What will it say if the party, your longtime party, puts him forward as their nominee?

Barr: Well, that's the problem. I don't think they're actually defending his conduct, but they are saying it's unfair to prosecute him. But that then raises another question. Okay, if it's unfair to prosecute him, that's not the whole answer.

The question is, should we be putting someone like this forward as the leader of the country, leader of the free world, who is engaged in this kind of conduct?

The other thing is, this is not just an isolated example. Trump has many good qualities, and he accomplished some good things.

But the fact of the matter is he is a consummate narcissist, and he constantly engages in reckless conduct that puts his political followers at risk and the conservative and Republican agenda at risk. Would he put the country at risk if he was in the White House? Again, he will always put his own interests and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country's interests. There's no question about it. This is a perfect example of that. He's like a defiant nine year old kid who's always pushing the glass toward the edge of the table, defying his parents to stop him from doing it. It's a means of self assertion and exerting his dominance over other people. And he's a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s, his personal gratification of his ego. But our country can't be a therapy session for a troubled man like this.

Costa: This is not the only special counsel investigation, an ongoing one on January 6, so many witnesses being called in. You were the star witness for the House January 6 committee. Are you willing to testify or have you already testified before the special counsel?

Barr: Well, if they called me in as a witness, of course I would testify. But all I said was what I recounted in my book about this false story about a stolen election. Have you talked to them in any way behind the scenes, if not formal testimony? Well, I'm not going to get into any communications I had with the government, but I don't expect to be a witness, but I'll be glad to be one if I'm called.

Costa: Trump was just indicted and arraigned in the Records case. Do you believe he's a target potentially in the January 6 case?

Barr: Yes. And I've said from the beginning, by the way I've defended him when I think there's cases that are unfair, like the one up in New York and so forth. And I've always said, I think the January 6 case will be a hard case to make because of First Amendment interest. But I'm actually starting to think they will pull the trigger on that, and I would expect it to be this summer.

Costa: Do you believe the Fulton County District Attorney, fonny. Willis, will indict Trump in Georgia?

Barr: Yeah, I don't know much about her case. I don't know if it's a sound case or not. I'm skeptical about that, but I why are you skeptical? Again, because of the First Amendment interest. We don't want to get into a position where people can't complain about an election and claim that an election Trump said on tape he wants the Secretary of State to find votes. Yeah, I know, but they're innocent interpretations of what he said, which is, look, of all the votes that we think are bad, you certainly can find among them some that are slam dunk. But whether that's the proper interpretation or not, I am more skeptical of that case. But on the other hand, I think it's likely that it'll be brought.

Costa: Former Attorney General William Barr. Really appreciate you taking the time to stop by and Face the Nation. We'll be right back. Don't go away.

Ego is Opposite of Narcissism: Ego Functions

As adapted from my teacher on narcissism, Prof. Sam Vaknin, edited for length and clarity

Summary

Ego is often misunderstood and misused in popular culture, e.g, Barr above, with many mistakenly associating it with narcissism. To recapitulate, Barr said “…he (Trump) will always put his own interests and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country's interests…And he's a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the countries, his personal gratification of his ego.” In reality, a healthy ego is the opposite of narcissism, as it is grounded in reality and not grandiosity.

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Ironically, the narcissist has no ego. The narcissist outsources his ego functions and imports them from the outside from other people.

The narcissist does not have an inflated ego, since in actuality, the narcissist doesn't have an ego at all.

The narcissist is indeed selfless in the sense that the narcissist doesn't have a self and doesn't have an ego. This is why the narcissist is parasitic because he/she relies on other people to perform functions that usually are carried out internally by healthy people.

Ego functions include reality testing, impulse control, regulation of emotions, judgment, object relations, thinking, defenses, and synthesis. A healthy ego is essential for proper functioning and maintaining a coherent identity. However, there are inherent problems and contradictions within the concept of the ego, such as the conflict between reality testing and defense mechanisms.

What are ego functions?

1) Reality Testing

The ego's role is to alert the owner of the ego to reality. It's to tell the owner of the ego, listen, what you're going to do is wrong. It's going to have repercussions. It's going to have implications and consequences which are adverse and you don't really want to do this.

So the ego monitors, and the ego in a way is hypervigilant. It monitors the environment. It surveys reality and it brings back information and data to the individual, trying to somehow modulate, moderate and control impulses and urges and drives, trying to modify behaviors in ways which would render them sublimated and socially acceptable.

The ego distinguishes what occurs in one's own mind from what is happening simultaneously in the external world out there.

In other words, the ego is the personality construct that is in charge of informing the individual what objects are external and which objects are internal.

The confusion between internal and external objects, for example, psychotic disorders, in narcissism, in borderline, this confusion is an outcome of an ego that is malformed or not fully formed.

Ego formation had been disrupted by trauma and abuse in early childhood.

The ego negotiates with the outside world. It requires perceiving stimuli, evaluating them, classifying and categorizing them and predicting the outcomes of actions.

So reality testing is a crucial component of surviving in the world and functioning in the world and on the world.

In other words, reality testing is the foundation of agency, personal agency and self-efficacy.

When the ego is healthy, when the ego is integrated, the reality testing works well.

If we observe deficiencies, chronic deficiencies, chronic malfunctions in reality testing, we can safely say that there's a problem with the ego, either an organic medical problem or psychological problem.

2) Impulse Control

It is the ego which is in charge of managing aggressive or libidinal erotic wishes.

So it is the ego that postpones gratifications, that delays action, prevents immediate discharge or immediate release of the impulse via behaviors or even via symptoms.

So when we see someone who has problems with impulse control, we can safely assume there's a problem with the ego.

People who have trouble with anger management, road rage, sexual promiscuity, excessive substance abuse, binge eating, etc. These kind of people have a problematic ego.

3) Regulation of Affect

Regulation of emotions and feelings without being overwhelmed, which is a prime indicator that, for example, people with borderline personality disorder, people with schizoid personality disorder, and people with narcissistic personality disorder, don't have an ego.

Because the borderline is manifestly and overtly emotionally dysregulated. S/he's overwhelmed by her emotions and also s/he mislabels her emotion.

The narcissist and the schizoid had chosen a different solution. They had repressed their emotions so deeply that they no longer have access to positive emotionality, only to negative emotions.

And in the case of a schizoid, sometimes not even to negative emotions. So when emotions are absent, we know that they are not regulated and we can safely assume there's a problem with the ego.

4) Judgment

The capacity to act judiciously, responsibly, in an adult manner, identifying possible causes of action, anticipating and evaluating likely consequences, making decisions as to what is appropriate in given circumstances.

Object relations are ego functions. Ego is what makes object relations possible and mutually satisfying.

Someone without an ego is incapable of having external object relations because they keep confusing external and internal objects.

The individual can perceive themself as a whole complete, separate, boundaried, bounded object entity. Only when s/he perceives other people as similarly bounded and boundaried and separate. Separateness is critical. If we don't perceive other people as separate from us, we merge, we fuse, we lose our own separateness.

And this is the role of the ego, object relations via separateness. You can get close and intimate with someone only if you recognize their autonomy, their separateness, that they are not like, that they are not you.

5) Thinking/Cognition

The ego is responsible for logical, coherent and abstract thinking.

In stressful situations, we can see that thought processes become disorganized and chaotic. Speech becomes disorganized. Word salad, for example, is schizophrenics. That's an outcome of the ego being overwhelmed by too much data, too much information, too many stressors.

The presence of chronic or severe problems in conceptual thinking is associated with a lack of ego or a totally fragmented ego, for example, in dissociative identity disorder, in schizophrenia, in the manic episodes, in bipolar disorder.

All the defensive functions, all of them reside in the ego. The role of defensive functions is to protect the individual. And they protect the individual by warding off, fending off, firewalling, input, data and information, which would be very powerful, very potent and identity threatening.

So defenses first develop in infancy. And then we have very primitive defenses like splitting, denial, projection. As we grow up, as we become adults, we develop much more sophisticated defenses, rationalization, for example, intellectualization. And we develop internal boundaries between the ego, the super ego, and the ego, to use Freud's lingo, to use his tripartite model.

So the ego is responsible for defense makers.

Defense mechanisms falsify reality. They falsify reality by excluding certain data and certain bits of information. So if they falsify reality, how can the ego do both things at once, maintain reality testing, and falsify reality?

It's a very good question. And the answer to which is unknown.

This is one of the major conundrums in the concept of ego, and in the derivatives, for example, ego therapy and self-theory, and Kohut's self-theory.

6) Synthesis

The ego operates defense mechanisms. Some of them are very primitive, projection, denial, splitting, and they're supposed to disappear as we grow up, mature, and become adults.

And then we have repression, we have regression, displacement, reaction formation, intellectualizations, many other defense mechanisms. Adults sometimes use primitive defenses, but this is usually when they are seriously stressed in a crisis, and so on and so forth.

But generally, they're more mature. They're more mature because they have accomplished something called synthesis.

The synthetic function of the ego is the capacity to organize and unify other functions within the personality. It enables the individual to think, to feel, to act in a coherent and cohesive manner.

In other words, it is the core of identity.

When we say, for example, oh, I know this guy. I know he's not going to do this. It's against his character. It's not in character.

This is the synthetic function. The ego synthesizes everything so that it presents to the world a coherent, cohesive, not immutable, but close to immutable, close to unchangeable, definitely predictable version of who we are.

And this is our identity.

And people come to rely on our identity. They come to expect certain things from us. They come to expect that we will not act in certain ways.

And it enables the individual to similarly rely on their self, an individual which is synthesized, whose ego is synthesized, or whose ego performs the synthetic function, is an individual who is at peace with him/herself. He knows himself. He knows his limitations. He knows the strong points. He knows what he can accomplish and what he cannot. He knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows to which behaviors he could expect of himself.

And often you hear people saying, I can't believe I did this. This is so out of character. These are people with ego problems. They are most likely Cluster B or some other personality disorder.

Only people with personality disorders, with severe fissures in the personality, with a disabled ego, would say something like this. The identity is lifelong. It prevails. It exists largely unchanged throughout the lifespan. Many things can change. Behaviors can change. Beliefs can change. Many things can change, but not the core identity.

Core identity persists throughout the lifespan.

And if someone acts in a way which is egodystonic, negates his core identity, and himself is shocked by this behavior, then something's wrong with this kind of person.

The synthetic function of the ego includes a capacity to integrate potentially contradictory experiences, ideas, and feelings. And this is the beginning, the glimmerings of an answer to the previous question.

This ability to synthesize allows the ego to reconcile somehow the reality testing, proper reality testing, with the reality falsifying qualities of defense mechanisms.

The ego synthesizes these two and subsumes them in what we call a narrative.

So the ego is in charge of creating narratives. It's the storyteller. It's the scriptwriter. It's the director of the movie that is alive.

And so the ego, for example, accommodates ambivalence. You could love someone and hate the same person. You could love someone and be angry at someone at the same time.

And it is the ego that synthesizes ambivalent feelings, ambivalent affects, ambivalent emotions, and somehow creates a narrative that accommodates both.

Obviously, the more intelligent you are, the more imaginative and creative you are, the easier it would be for your ego to function.

That's a major problem in personality disorders, because people with personality disorders who are intelligent and imaginative and creative, they create narratives. They don't have an ego. They don't have a functioning ego, but they have the synthetic function. They create narratives that compensate for the lack of ego.

And these narratives, because they're imbued with intelligence and creativity and imagination, these narratives are very difficult to contradict or to break.

In therapy, these people act together when it comes to the narrative. They are so convinced of their narrative.

And of course, another name for this narrative is personality disorder.

So these narratives, people without an ego or with a dysfunctional ego or malformed ego or nonintegrated ego, they come out with compensatory narratives known as personality disorders.

And there is the ego. The ego controls the id, modulates it, modifies it, prevents it from acting crazy. There's a super ego which monitors both of them and supervises them, kind of judges them. Sometimes we call it inner critic, if it's highly sadistic.

Just remember, ego is the opposite of narcissism.

So when an “expert” espouses ego death working with psychedelics, for example, they're actually misleading their interlocutor that they should become a narcissist.

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