Carville says he has ‘Trump derangement syndrome’: ‘I can’t sleep’

Democratic strategist James Carville quipped Tuesday he “can’t sleep” because of his “Trump derangement syndrome,” referring to the fake condition some use to describe a person with an intense worry about and fixation on what President Trump does.

Carville said in an appearance on podcast network Politicon’s YouTube channel that political commentators like comedian Bill Maher have accused him of having the fake syndrome, which the president sometimes refers to as TDS . But the strategist went on to embrace the label.

“I got it, and I want it, and I want it to get worse,” Carville said. “If I could take a pill that would help me hate that motherf‑‑‑er more and obsess on him more, I would take that pill. Maybe we can have a pharmacological intervention, I don’t know.”

Carville said earlier in the clip that he hates “the son of a b‑‑‑‑, I hate what he’s doing to this country. I’m obsessed with it. I can’t sleep at night.”

The lead campaign strategist to former President Clinton called the “condition” a “horrific , consuming disease,” adding that “millions” of Americans are afflicted by viewing Trump as a “criminal of the first order.”

“In other words, we think this administration is so corrupt that when somebody tallies it up, hopefully it’ll be some genius at The Atlantic at some time in the future, will conclude that more was stolen from Jan. 20, 2025, and Oct. 21, 2026, than the entire history of the country,” he continued, comparing Trump’s controversies to others throughout U.S. history, such as the Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920s.

He added that critics with TDS “can’t think of anything else” and that it is an “obsession, and if you don’t understand that, you don’t understand the country that you’re reporting on.”

He closed the video saying that while he has TDS, he hoped to “get rid of it sometime around, oh, I don’t know, 22:00 hours, 3 November 2026” — the date of the upcoming midterm elections.

The president frequently uses the pejorative moniker on his opponents. He notably claimed filmmaker Rob Reiner — a known Trump critic — and his wife were killed in December “due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”

The term has been linked to a similar label conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer coined, “Bush derangement syndrome,” which referred to an obsession and anger with former President George W. Bush during his presidency.

Carville, long nicknamed the “Ragin’ Cajun,” is a vocal critic of Trump. The strategist often says he believes the president’s unpopularity could drive him out of office and cause him to lose support .

In June, he predicted Trump would be so “miserable” following the midterms and “bored” by the Iran war that he would leave the presidency by “Easter 2027.”