On the second hour of “Morning Joe” Wednesday, George Will — the dean of conservative media — had some choice words for the president’s visit to Puerto Rico on Tuesday.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist said that many of Trump’s interactions with people on the island following the devastation of Hurricane Maria suggested the president was suffering from “a kind of social autism.”
He specifically zeroed in on viral footage of Trump throwing paper towels to hurricane victims in a kind of “Las Vegas lounge act” routine,as he put it.
Trump elegantly shoots paper towels into the crowd in Puerto Rico pic.twitter.com/fMELhafR5Q
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) October 3, 2017
“He lacks basic empathy. He does not understand. He cannot put himself in the place of others who are suffering,” remarked show host Joe Scarborough.
“It’s not clear he sees other people,” said Will. “There’s such a thing as a kind of social autism that he just doesn’t connect with other people and again, there is no point in saying maybe he’ll acquire it. This is not part of his genetic makeup.”
The popular MSNBC morning show and its guests have a long history of diagnosing the president with all forms of ailments. Generally the go-to has been mental illness (usually courtesy of “Dr.” Mika Brzezinski).
“Social autism” appears to be a new one.
Trashing Trump, however, is nothing new for Will. The columnist regularly goes after the president from his perch at the Washington Post.
Some pieces have included, “Trump has a dangerous disability” and “Trump is the waterbeetle of American politics and he’ll keep on flabbergasting.” Will also famously left the Republican party following Trump’s nomination last year and — like Scarborough himself — now counts himself as an “independent.”