Brooks: Trump’s Reaction To EgyptAir Flight ‘Narcissistic,’ Chose Reality ‘Useful for Him’

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks argued that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump reacted to EgyptAir Flight 804 “in narcissistic fashion” and “chose the reality that was useful for him at that moment.”

Earlier, Brooks said, “[D]oes the president have power to end all gun-free zones around schools? I mean, school — there is a federal law that George W. — H.W. Bush passed. But, the schools, and the localities, and the states have some say in all this. And so he does — he doesn’t really have the power. It’s like a symbolic issue.”

He continued, “So much is symbolic. Even his reaction to the airplane that crashed, he — it’s — in narcissistic fashion, frankly, he chose the reality that was useful for him at that moment. And reality bends around him. And so, we don’t know what happened to that plane. But he said — and then we just saw that clip — if you disagree with me on this unknown thing, you’re 100 percent wrong. And that’s the reality force field that he creates around himself.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett