Our president can’t help himself. He just cannot help himself.

As he exited a firehouse in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Tuesday, President Donald Trump noticed a crowd of about 800 people. He grabbed a lone star Texas flag and shouted back at his supporters: “What a crowd! What a turnout!”

And there you have it. Minutes after managing to show leadership while sitting at a table of local, state and federal officials managing the catastrophic mess of Hurricane Harvey, the president couldn’t resist the lure of an adoring crowd of supporters.

And as a result, once again ignite questions about his inability to show true compassion for those who are hurting.

I know, I know … this sounds like nit-picking. Only it’s not.

This is about our president, and the hundreds of thousands of flooded-out Texans who want to believe that he feels their pain. That at least for today, they are first on his heart.

Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama all had to do it. It’s part of the job as comforter in chief. It’s acknowledging the fact that anyone can write a check, but not everyone is willing to come down, put their arms around you and tell you it’s going to be OK.

Trump had the opportunity on Tuesday, but he didn’t close the deal.

Trump did well going to Texas

The president, despite criticism about a Friday night pardoning of former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, had pushed aides from the beginning to schedule a visit to Texas as early as possible after Harvey made landfall near Rockport, Texas that same Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane. He has made sure to say repeatedly that all necessary federal resources would be made available to relief efforts. And the crucial Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has performed admirably, coordinating with Texas state and local officials.

Trump even made the right call Tuesday by going to the Gulf Coast city of Corpus Christi, to avoid being a distraction from the catastrophic flooding that was ravaging the Houston area about 200 miles to the northeast.

“It’s a real team, and we want to do it better than ever before,” Trump said of the response effort during a briefing with officials in the Corpus Christi firehouse. “We want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now as, this is the way to do it.”

That’s all good. But even during the briefing, Trump had to be pulled back from P.T. Barnum-mode after introducing FEMA administrator Brock Long as “the man who’s really been very famous on television over the last couple of days.”

Long quickly responded that “all eyes are on Houston, and so are mine,” cautioning that rescue and recovery efforts still have “a long way to go.”

“We’re still in a life-saving, life-sustaining mission,” he added, as if intending to re-focus the president’s attention where it should be — on the victims, especially in Houston where 9,000 residents fleeing rising floodwaters crammed into a makeshift shelter designed to accommodate 5,000.

“This is not the Superdome,” Long said, referring to the chaos residents of New Orleans endured while seeking shelter at a sports arena after Hurricane Katrina 12 years ago. “I have an incident management team inside the city of Houston. And more and more people are being moved to shelters to stabilize the situation.”

America in split-screen: flag-waving vs. empathy

Long’s sobering focus was made surreal by the split-screen video feed from Houston that showed simultaneously on every major news channel that carried the president’s briefing.

Images of people wading through water chest deep, carrying babies and pets. The self-described “Cajun Navy” risking their own lives and boats to find trapped residents and get them to safety. Neighbors fighting against rushing floodwaters to form a human chain to get a nine-months-pregnant woman aboard a dump truck.

It was an awesome sight. America at its best, to be sure.

And in Corpus Christi, which, by comparison, had sustained relatively light damage from the storm, there was Trump still managing to seem like he was above it all standing atop a fire truck.

“Texas can handle anything,” he said, waving the state flag to cheers.

There were no handshakes. No hugs. No words of comfort whispered in any ears.

Well, even Trump knew this lack of empathy didn’t play well.

On Wednesday morning, he tweeted: “After witnessing first hand the horror & devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey, my heart goes out even more so to the great people of Texas!”

And that afternoon, before a speech touting his tax reform proposal, he gave weary Texans another shout out.

But those words from a distance did little to erase the seeming disconnect on Tuesday. A disconnect made worse shortly after Trump’s firehouse speech by Houston’s mayor and police chief when they delivered the somber news that a Houston Police Department officer had died in the relief effort around 4 a.m. Sunday. Officer Steve Perez, a 34-year veteran of the force, drowned when his car was submerged driving through a flooded underpass as he tried to get to his “secondary” duty station, according to Police Chief Art Acevedo.

At last 40 people, including Perez, have been confirmed dead as a result of the storm, officials said Friday.

Thank goodness for second chances

As this column was going to press, Trump was scheduled to return to the region on Saturday. That would be a good time for him to reach out to Acevedo and Mayor Sylvester Turner, whom Trump has basically avoided to this point.

Yes, he’s already been shown up by Vice President Mike Pence, who on Thursday was on the ground in Rockport hugging and consoling victims. He also lent a hand at picking up debris.

Trump, as if to raise the vice president one, is now pledging to write a $1 million check to the Harvey relief effort, the White House said Thursday.

OK, but why didn’t he do that on Tuesday, when he and the first lady were in Texas “witnessing first hand the horror & devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey”?

It is possible, given all of the misery they are currently experiencing from the deluge of Hurricane Harvey, that Texas residents — especially those in Houston — could care less whether the president feels their pain.

Maybe this early test of Trump’s talents as comforter in chief will be less of a showcase for him to demonstrate compassion, and more one for leadership. To that end, maybe all frustrated and exhausted residents really care about is an adequate FEMA response.

Nah … they also want to know that the president cares more about them than he does himself. That he won’t be standing above an adoring crowd blowing kisses — wearing a “USA” cap that he hawks for $40 on his website — while they and their family members are sleeping on cots in an over-crowded, makeshift shelter.

Sure, it’s symbolic; but symbolism matters — just ask former President George W. Bush.

Rarely do we get second chances to make good impressions. I hope the president makes the most of his.