Bob Schwartz

In an interview yesterday, the President of the United States said:

I’m the only one that matters.

If you think this must be out of context, here’s the context. He was asked about there being so many unfilled high-level positions in the State Department, the foreign affairs arm of the American government. He dismissed the need for these people:

So we don’t need all the people they want. I’m a businessman, and I tell my people, ‘When you don’t need to fill slots, don’t fill them.’ But we have some people that I’m not happy with there. Lemme tell you, the one that matters is me. I’m the only one that matters, because when it comes to it, that’s what the policy is going to be.

“I’m the only one that matters” is something you might hear from someone you’re in a difficult relationship with, or from the person who owns the company you work for, or from a dictator. But no American President has ever publicly said this. Being chief of the public enterprise that is America means that lots of other people matter—even if only a little.

The one blessing of Trump’s disorders (see Narcissistic Personality Disorder) is his unrestrained need to reveal exactly what is in his head at the moment, since these are the greatest thoughts in the world, the only ones that matter. This quote reveals something that everybody already knew, but it is still helpful to hear it from the horse’s mouth.