But what he really did was surrender while declaring victory. For all his constant talk about strength, Trump came off weak and depleted. After he went to Capitol Hill to sell his version of the immigration bill, it failed. And his intervention in the furor over Melania’s jacket—in which he contradicted her office’s explanation of what the jacket slogan meant—came off as doddering and hopeless.
For three years now we’ve been told that nothing bad sticks to Trump, that his mind games and double-talk make him invulnerable to the protestations of the righteous. That no matter how tight his detractors tie the knot, he’ll always slip out of it. This week we learned differently. Trump can reliably win the battle if it’s fought with words. But against images and descriptions of distraught and traumatized children and parents, Trump’s superpowers fail. If you want to beat Trump, hit him in the heart because he doesn’t seem to have one. He’s a man with zero emotional intelligence.
