success is an insult to those families, to the dead, and a disastrous response. the carolinas will be a different response situation because it s on the coast of the united states. that statement isn t just a denial of reality, it s an insult to the puerto rico families. the other thing is there is a real empathy gap that president trump has demonstrated time and time again at moments like this, that he had an opportunity to express sympathy and concern about the loss of life, whether he feels responsible for it or not. he repeatedly refuses to do that, and in these moments, it s not just about the logistics of what the government is doing, it s also about the president s role as the sort of comforter of the nation, as a person who brings people together, as a person who is sort of the head of the federal family here saying, we re here for you. and president trump is trying to do that, but it is difficult, it
families are with him and standing with him because they do feel an empathy gap and that people don t give their pain a lot of credit because it is uncomfortable to talk about and because i think it is not statistically representative and great for crafting policy but the pain is real and does point out sometimes real gaps in our immigration system which is a disaster and why we might need a comprehensive smart legislative solution but whatever. for instance, some people have been deported several times and come back to commit crimes. so that is a problem worth pointing out. this is not the way that i would ever do it. and i don t think that much like emotionalism on the other side it doesn t get it closer but for donald trump this is familiar. this is how he started the day he came down the escalator, started his campaign. some of the faces look familiar from the campaign and the trail and we know it works. but let s focus on what is happening on the border right now. jackie, cn
not understand gun culture. they are right to notice when people get terminology wrong. but this is a fairly mainstream thing to do. these are tools that many americans have in their houses and not being able to understand that, and see the sensational angle is very dangerous in trying to cover this issue. for me, this weekend was so newsworthy because of the intensity gap. it suggested that the nra and guns rights activists have so much more intensity they are willing to go out and vote on an issue, where activists are intense. do you see that gap changing now? there are two things that changed on saturday. one was the intensity gap, the willingness of people to vote on this issue, and the second was the empathy gap. the problem for decades has been intensity, and white and suburban advocates said they aren t willing to show up for black and brown children who die
but i m kind of speechless right now, but look, that changed me, too. it changed me, too. i m still friends with them. are you? still friends. they text me encouragement, i text them back if i m in that part of the country, they see me speak. they still support trump. but they re good people, hard working people. exactly right. they felt like nobody was listening to them, and i asked them, what about the terrible stuff trump says? they said, we just crumple that up and throw it away. we re desperate for jobs. part of what i think is going on and what i need your help with on as well is that there s an empathy gap. i can understand my pain, but i can t understand their pain. they can understand their pain, they can t understand my pain. you ve been a bridge builder for empathy. what are some of the things you do in conversation or in your life that let you bridge so well? well, what we were able to do on 60 minutes is put people together in the room to hear. one of the thing
clear is that donald trump does not speak the language of empathy. and, you know, we weren t in that car. we didn t hear the conversation, but obviously and by the way, i think the initial account should have been treated perhaps with some skepticism s. here you have the enter ak of the credibility gap and the empathy gap for this president particularly now that the mother is speaking out. it is incomprehensible that the president would have gone 12 days without commenting on this at a time when he was tweeting endlessel about the nfl. it s incomprehensible except in trump world for him then to be asked about it and then to make false statements about the way other presidents had in fact handled it. and it s really unconscionable that then defensibleel he plit sizes the death of general kelly s son, something that general kelly has gone out of his way to keep out of politics. a very deeply, private personal event. so take all of that with his tone deaf conversation with this