Speaking in the White House at a meeting with U.S. governors, President Donald Trump criticized the sheriff’s deputies who stayed outside the school during the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, which he contrasted to his own hypothetical bravery. “I really believe I’d run in there, even if I didn’t have a weapon, and I think most of the people in this room would have done that too,” Trump said.

Critics noted Trump’s history of avoiding opportunities for heroism. He received five draft deferments he received during the Vietnam War, including one for bone spurs in his heels.

Perhaps the deputies had bone spurs https://t.co/fL5dJPeaMf — Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 26, 2018

Trump has also admitted he can’t handle the sight of blood. “I’m not good for medical,” he told radio shock-jock Howard Stern in 2008. “In other words, if you cut your finger and there’s blood pouring out, I’m gone.” As evidence, he told a story about an 80-year-old man who fell off the stage during a charity event at Mar-a-Lago, the Trump resort. “And you know what I did? I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting,’ and I turned away,” he said. “I couldn’t, you know, he was right in front of me and I turned away. I didn’t want to touch him… He’s bleeding all over the place, I felt terrible. You know, beautiful marble floor, didn’t look like it.”

Trump’s daydream of rushing into a school during a mass shooting, so at odds with his admitted squeamishness, “was equal parts hilarious and human,” wrote Washington Post columnist Daniel Drezner. “The truth is that we all want to be the hero of our own story. If something bad is going down, we like to imagine doing the right thing.... For Trump to try to envision himself—and, it should be noted, others in the room—as heroes is about as normal a human response as I’ve seen from Trump.”

What sets Trump apart is not that he’s a hero in his own mind, but that he’s a public fantasist, given to loudly extolling embellished or entirely imagined achievements. Earlier this year, ahead of his first presidential physical, Trump said, “I was always the best athlete, people don’t know that. But I was successful at everything I ever did and then I run for president, first time—first time, not three times, not six times. I ran for president first time and lo and behold, I win. And then people say, ‘Oh, is he a smart person?’ I’m smarter than all of them put together, but they can’t admit it.”

