Tag Archives: GMA

Trump’s empathy is MIA

I keep looking — foolishly, I’ll acknowledge — for some signal that Donald Trump actually feels the pain of those who are stricken by the COVID-19 virus.

I cannot find it. It’s nowhere. It’s missing in action.

The other morning I turned on “Good Morning America” and watched Trump being interviewed by ABC News anchor David Muir. Trump got the question from Muir: What do you want to say to the millions of Americans who are suffering from the pandemic?

Trump said, “I love you.” He said “no one feels worse” than he does about the suffering. Trump said he has lost sleep over it.

Then he pivoted rapidly to reopening the country. He wants to get the country’s economy restarted. He said, “By the same token,” he wants business to get cranked up, boasting to Muir about how the nation was enjoying the greatest economy in human history when the pandemic struck.

Thus, Trump cannot speak with any semblance of sincere empathy to the suffering that his own administration exacerbated by its initial non-response to the growing pandemic.

Instead, he speaks of jobs lost. Don’t misunderstand me: That is a huge deal, too. Then again, he appears incapable of speaking with compassion and empathy to those who have lost their income, who are struggling to pay the mortgage, the rent, the auto loan, student loan, to buy food and medicine. The Carnival Barker in Chief speaks only to the national economy, couching it in terms that play to his re-election chances.

I am acutely aware that no demonstration of empathy would fix matters; it won’t produce a cure for what ails us. All I want from any president in a time of crisis is an example that he cares about all of us, that he understands the misery that has been unleashed. If you’ll pardon the cliché, that he “feels our pain.”

This clown feels nothing. He needs to leave the White House.

Not interested in hearing what Trump ‘thinks’ or ‘believes’

This thought bears repeating.

I am not the least bit interested in hearing Donald John Trump tell us what he “thinks” or “believes” about the coronavirus pandemic. I am intensely interested, though, in hearing from medical and scientific experts about the data they analyze and what their expertise tells them about what the data reveal.

The president keeps taking the microphone at those daily White House briefings. Having told you already that I don’t listen to him blather on in the moment, I am left to read about what he says later in the day. And he keeps yapping and yammering about what he thinks is going to happen or whether he believes that hospital officials need all the respirators they are seeking.

The president needs to step out of the way and let the experts talk to the nation and the world about what they know, not what they think or believe.

Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared on “Good Morning, America” today and offered stark, level-headed analysis of the crisis that is developing. GMA co-host George Stephanopoulos noted that Fauci has served six presidents since 1984 and has emerged as the nation’s premier infectious disease specialist. He never fails to deliver the facts in a calm, reassuring way … even when they reveal grim news, as they did today, Stephanopoulos said.

My message once more to Donald Trump? Stop talking.