President Donald Trump has made a pattern of turning any question — even the most tragic — into an opportunity to boast about himself. But the way he did it this time left viewers convinced they were watching something far more disturbing unfold in real time.
He seems increasingly unaware when he slips into this patter, as the reflex kicks in even when reporters are asking about serious, deadly developments.
But it’s jarring and shocking when he does this, and he did it again at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort while talking to reporters about the Nov. 26 deadly ambush of two West Virginia National Guard members on patrol in Washington near the White House.
The two service members were attacked, allegedly by an Afghan national who opened fire on them in broad daylight. Twenty-year-old U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom was critically injured and later died at the hospital. Her colleague, 24-year-old Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, is still hospitalized in critical condition, according to ABC News.
When a reporter asked Trump whether he planned to attend Beckstrom’s funeral, the answer required nothing more than empathy — a simple “yes,” as one viewer put it. Instead, Trump drifted into an all-too-familiar loop.
“I haven’t thought about it yet, but it’s certainly something I could conceive of,” he began, before abruptly veering off to tout his own political success in Beckstrom’s home state.
“I love West Virginia. You know I won West Virginia by one of the biggest margins of any president anywhere,” Trump said, fumbling for the memory of his scripted brag.
He circled back to the question only to deliver another empty non-answer. “But I haven’t given it any thought, but it sounds like something I could do. Yeah, it’s very raw,” he said.
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Social media lost its mind as angry users took to platforms like Threads to voice their anger and disapproval of Trump for his tone-deaf response just a day after Beckstrom passed away from her injuries.
“He got that woman killed,” one user wrote, arguing that Beckstrom and Wolfe would never have been on the streets of Washington if not for Trump’s controversial deployment of more than 2,000 federalized National Guard troops to the capital in August.
Another viewer pointed out the cruelty of the moment. “What a disgraceful, self-centered piece of sewage. He illegally sends her into harm’s way. She is killed by someone to whom HIS administration granted asylum. When asked about attending her funeral he talks about the scenery and his vote count. He is evil.”
For some, Trump’s answer wasn’t just inappropriate — it confirmed their fear that he no longer understands the gravity of anything outside his own ego.
“Everything is about him,” one person wrote on Threads. “Despite his clear decline, which is difficult to assess because he has always been intellectually challenged, his narcissism remains intact.”
“Hey, monster, the subject is a young woman who has died because you need to be macho man,” another Threads user wrote. “Not you and your inflated sense of self.”
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“No brains left,” one commenter wrote. “He definitely has mentally left the building.”
Another viewer noted that the question required nothing complicated, “The right answer was the simplest. ‘Yes.’”
“He is socially bankrupt,” one viewer wrote. “The words ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ are not in his vocabulary.”
The day before the shooting, Nov. 25, Trump bragged about the military takeover of Washington, claiming the city was one of the most dangerous in the country and now it’s “totally safe.”
He also repeated a false claim he’s been making for weeks that there have been no murders in Washington in months.
According to the Metropolitan Police Department in DC crime was already decreasing in the nation’s capital with homicides down by 29 percent compared to last year and total violent crimes down by 28 percent before Trump sent in federalized troops. And news outlets are reporting that the MPD counted 62 homicides since May in the city, including one last week.
