Brooks on Trump Smiling in Photo with El Paso Orphan: ‘He’s a Sociopath’

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said that when he saw President Trump smiling and giving a thumbs-up in a picture with a child orphaned by the El Paso shooting, he thought, “well, he’s a sociopath.”

Brooks said, “Well, there’s a photo, a still, from that visit, where he’s with the orphan baby and two family members, with his wife, and Melania’s holding the child. And he’s got this grin and the thumb up. … And I look at that photo, I think, well, he’s a sociopath. He’s incapable of experiencing or showing empathy, and, politically, it’s helpful for him to target that lack of empathy and fellow feeling toward people of color. But how much have we seen him show empathy for anybody? And so, I look at that as someone who is unloved and made himself unlovable and whose subject is himself, is his own competitive greatness. And so, he doesn’t do the consoler-in-chief just because he doesn’t do that emotional range. And that’s a burden and a cost for any of us.”

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