Iran's negotiating secret: Hiring psychologists to manage Trump's 'psychopathic behavior' during talks

As the United States and Iran edged toward a historic agreement to end months of war, Tehran was running a parallel operation behind the scenes — one that had nothing to do with centrifuges or sanctions, and everything to do with the man sitting across the diplomatic table.

Iran's negotiating team quietly brought two senior psychologists into its advisory circle to assess the mental state of President Donald Trump and help craft the messages being routed to him through regional mediators, Drop Site News reported Sunday, citing an Iranian official who was not authorised to speak publicly.

The psychologists joined the process after the first round of bilateral talks in Islamabad in April, as both sides began exchanging proposed terms for a possible memorandum of understanding.

Their task, as the official described it, was clinical in nature. "We added two senior psychologists to the negotiations' advisory circle so that we can shape messages intended for President Trump from the perspective of managing what we regard as psychopathic behavior pattern," the official told Drop Site.

The strategy, by Tehran's own account, produced results. According to the Iranian official, there was a marked improvement in Trump's behaviour once Tehran started incorporating the psychiatrists' recommendations into its messages and written communications.

A deal reached, a method revealed

The disclosure arrived days after the two countries announced they had reached a preliminary agreement on a Memorandum of Understanding, to be signed in Geneva, Switzerland on June 19. The revelation that Iran was running psychological profiling operations on the US president throughout those negotiations adds an extraordinary dimension to what was already an unusual diplomatic process.

Every message Iran sent to Trump passed through Qatari and Omani mediators before reaching him. That indirect channel meant Tehran could not rely on reading the room in real time — which is precisely why, the official suggested, getting the psychology right before the diplomacy mattered so much.

The official also noted that Iran conducted its negotiations with an eye on history. "Because the exchanged texts will ultimately become part of the historical record, we conduct our negotiations in a manner that ensures the relative weight and sophistication of each party's negotiating techniques will be evident should these communications be made public in the years ahead," the official said.

The wider context

The revelation does not exist in isolation. The Washington Post recently reported that 22 medical specialists examined Trump as part of his latest checkup — nearly double the number of specialists who assessed him during previous presidential physicals, and described as the most medical specialists to assess a president for a single visit.

US Vice President JD Vance has said that many issues remain to be resolved with Iran, after Trump's Republican allies expressed doubts over the agreement reached between the two sides.

Whether the psychologists' involvement ultimately shaped the outcome of the deal — or whether Tehran is simply burnishing its own negotiating record ahead of a difficult ratification process — is impossible to verify independently. What is clear is that Iran looked at the most powerful office on earth and concluded the most useful expertise it could bring to the table was not legal, or technical, or diplomatic.

It was clinical.