Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” New York Times columnist David Brooks criticized President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus outbreak by claiming that he does not “feel the emotions of other people,” which he said leads him to misread the country.

Host Chuck Todd asked, “David Brooks, this was after the Wednesday address, Noah Rothman wrote, ‘There’s no excuse for the kind of carelessness in a prepared address to the nation. The cumulative effect of these errors and compromise measures was to leave the nation less confident than before the president spoke.’ The president might have been better off keeping quiet, but the point is it does seem as if that lack of confidence, and you start to see it, it’s spreading with different people on how to deal with this crisis.”

Brooks said, “We see it with every fall official. None can get in front of President Trump, so they all have to hang back. I had a friend, somebody I care about deeply, call me last night and say he had a fever. I had no idea what to tell him. It was very unnerving. The next instinct is, I’m going to drive up and see him, but we can’t do that either. This goes against human nature that we can’t care for our loved ones. We have a president who doesn’t feel the emotions of other people. Therefore, he can’t read the country. Six months ago, he can’t say people are really hurting. They’re afraid out there. I have to act. He lacks that sense. He’s not really seeing the country. He’s reading what people think about him, which is all he sees. Therefore, all his reactions are late and deadened.”

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