He failed. Hugely.
Soon after touching down in Puerto Rico, Trump said the following to government officials:
"Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous -- hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here, with really a storm that was just totally overpowering, nobody's ever seen anything like this. What is your death count as of this moment? 17? 16 people certified, 16 people versus in the thousands. You can be very proud of all of your people and all of our people working together. Sixteen versus literally thousands of people. You can be very proud. Everybody around this table and everybody watching can really be very proud of what's taken place in Puerto Rico."
Where to begin????
How about that suggestion that what happened in Puerto Rico -- an entire island devastated, huge swaths without power, food and water in short supply -- wasn't a "real" catastrophe because not that many people died?
Or what about using death count as a talking point? Yes, it's true that far more people died in Katrina (1,800+) than did in Maria (16). But for the families of the 16 who died, that loss is no less heartbreaking.
Loss of life is loss of life. And we're not even dealing with the thousands of people whose lives have been fundamentally altered, forever, as a result of this storm -- for whom things will never be the same and may well be far, far worse.
"Proud" is not the right word for how people should -- or do -- feel. It's not even close.
It's the opposite of empathy. Instead of mourning with and for those who lost their lives, Trump is using those who lost their lives as a way to make a broader argument that the media's criticism of him is unfair and biased.
See, I told you I was doing a great job, Trump was saying. Everyone here thinks so!
Me, me, me, me.
This is Trump off the telemprompter. Twitter Trump. Trump's real personality -- when words are not being carefully selected for him.
Trump knew -- because everyone wrote about it and TV talked about it relentlessly -- that the big question today in Puerto Rico was whether he could show some actual empathy, some human kindness to people he didn't know but who were still his constituents.
And, even knowing that, Trump delivered a navel-gazing, self-championing, victimhood-seeking speech that reeked of tone-deafness and out-of-touch-ism.
Even for this President, who has redefined presidential -- and not for the better -- this is a truly remarkable low.
-- Chris |
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