Day 399: Trump Needed a Script to Show Empathy

Survivors of gun violence and their families were everywhere Wednesday. At the White House, Donald Trump hosted a “listening session” with students and parents who had been affected by school shootings, including survivors from last week’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting; In Sunrise, Florida, CNN hosted a town hall with students, parents, teachers, lawmakers and an NRA representative; other student activists gave impassioned speeches on TV or lobbied lawmakers directly in state capitals.

At the town hall, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) bore the brunt of a particularly hostile crowd demanding change to the nation’s gun laws. When asked by one student, Cameron Kasky, whether he would promise not to take any more NRA money, Rubio hemmed and hawed before declining to make such a pledge.

Another speaker, Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jamie was killed in last week’s shooting, called Rubio and Trump’s response to the shooting “pathetically weak,” drawing a standing ovation from the crowd.

While Rubio largely evaded answering difficult questions, at least he showed up to speak to a non-presorted crowd and was able to act like a normal human being.

That’s more than can be said for Trump.

Despite Trump’s team preselecting who would speak at his event, Trump’s meeting had a few moments that particularly stood out, including when one student, Samuel Zeif, gave an heartfelt speech imploring change.

However, Trump didn’t really seem to get the message conveyed by most speakers. At one point he suggested that the answer to the problem was more guns, including, perhaps, arming teachers.

During the session, a photographer caught Trump’s notes.

Below standard questions designed to keep Trump on track — what do you want me to know? and what can we do to help? — was a strange inclusion:

“(5) I hear you.”

Trump’s aides thought it was necessary to tell him to make sure to inform the speaker that they had been heard. That their time was not being wasted. That, even if he disagreed with underlying policy issues, Trump could see where they were coming from. That Trump could be human.

Trump had to be told to show empathy to victims of school shootings.

399 days in, 1063 to go

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