Anna North, an editor for the New York Times editorial page, dipped into President Trump’s psyche and said the most remarked upon moment of his first joint session speech revealed an “obsession” he has with being liked.
In a column published Wednesday, North said when Trump paid homage to slain Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens, whose wife attended the address, it demonstrated his “willingness to say whatever he needs to say” to get applause.
“When he imagines a deceased veteran gazing down from heaven at his widow, the president and the assembled Congress, he sees that veteran measuring the length of his own ovation, and patting himself on the back for breaking a record,” she said. “In other words, when asked to take the perspective of someone who has ‘laid down his life for his friends, for his country, and for our freedom,’ Mr. Trump assumes that what would gratify such a person is the same thing that gratifies him: adulation.”
During Trump’s speech on Tuesday, he acknowledged Carryn Owens, the widow of William “Ryan” Owens, who was killed in the recent raid in Yemen.
Carryn Owens, seated in the first lady’s box, received a two-minute standing ovation.
“Ryan is looking down right now, you know that,” Trump said, as he looked at Owens. “And he’s very happy, because I think he just broke a record.”
More applause followed and Owens, with tears on her face, looked upward and mouthed the words, “I love you.”
Many in the news media, on both the left and right, admired the moment.
CNN commentator and former Obama administration official Van Jones said Trump “became president of the United States in that moment, period.”
North, however, said it bolstered the perception that Trump craves affirmation.
“Americans would do well to take Tuesday’s address not as a change of course for the president,” wrote North, “but as yet another example of one of his most entrenched traits: his willingness to say whatever he needs to say to get an audience to like him.”
