Lawrence: Trump looking away from a man in need should be the portrait for his second term

Well, with Donald Trump's government shutdown now threatening the reliability of air travel in the United States, giving Americans new worries today about every airline reservation anyone currently holds for air travel in America, including Thanksgiving travel, Donald Trump gathered in the Oval Office with pharmaceutical company executives to discuss possible future price reductions for what Donald Trump inelegantly calls the fat drug.

So today I'm thrilled to announce that the two world's largest pharmaceutical manufacturers, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, have agreed to offer their most popular GLP-1 weight loss drug. I call it the Fat Drug, remember? At drastic discounts.

As Donald Trump, along with some of his administration officials and pharmaceutical executives, droned on, someone standing with the group collapsed, which immediately sent the physician in the room, Dr. Mehmet Oz, into action, along with other normal human beings who reached down to help the man who was revived

and then helped from the room who reached down to help the man who was revived and then helped from the room by White House medical staff.

At the first sign of the commotion, Donald Trump turned around as you see there, but then, not understanding what was happening, he turned away. When he saw that man on the ground, he looked and then turned away, as you see here. And then Donald Trump, a person without a single sympathetic instinct, stood staring straight ahead, as if pretending that whatever suffering the man behind him was

experiencing wasn't happening. And yes, that's the man's foot in the air that you see in the corner of that picture, his feet. This image captured Donald Trump's ability to completely ignore a person in need. We know what Joe Biden would have done. We know what Barack Obama would have done.

We know what George W. Bush would have done. They would have gotten physically involved in reaching down to help that person. They wouldn't get in the way of Dr. Oz or any other medical professional there, but they wouldn't ignore it. They wouldn't turn away. Donald Trump did that today

with a man on the floor in the Oval Office, and he did it today with millions of American air travelers whose plans he is threatening, and he did it today with millions of Americans who are worried about their ability to afford food because Donald Trump is trying to take

their supplemental nutrition assistance benefits away while a judge in Rhode Island continues to order Donald Trump to fund those benefits fully. It is the same Oval Office where Donald Trump congratulated Elon Musk for taking food out of the mouths of starving children and starving people in famine conditions in Africa.

It is the same Oval Office where Donald Trump congratulated Elon Musk for denying life-saving medicine that this country has been giving to fight AIDS in Africa for over 20 years, thanks to a very successful program created by President George W. Bush and Dr. Anthony Fauci. Elon Musk killed all of that with Donald Trump's hearty approval, which led Bill Gates to describe Elon Musk as the world's richest man killing the world's poorest children.

The New Yorker is reporting on a new analysis that shows that Donald Trump and Elon Musk's destruction of the United States Agency for International Development has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. Those 600,000 people died while Donald Trump was staring straight ahead in the other direction with those dying children in Africa far behind his back,

the way that suffering man was today. That is the picture of the Trump presidency. That should be the Trump second term official portrait. Portrait of Donald Trump standing mindlessly, staring straight ahead, wondering when he will next get to play golf maybe, while a man's feet are in the air behind him being picked up by other people

who have the capacity to care about another human being in distress. After the suffering man was removed from the Oval Office and the pharmaceutical executives continued congratulating themselves, Mr. Oblivious opened the floor to questions

from the White House Press Corps, and he finally got a good question from the White House Press Corps about tariffs, because yesterday the Supreme Court handed White House reporters questions that even they could understand.

And the reporter who asked the question that I'm about to present to you is one of the best, SV Date, who actually understood tariffs before the Supreme Court explained them to the White House Press Corps yesterday. His question was, Mr. President, yesterday in the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts said the tariffs are taxes and that they're paid by Americans. He said this pretty clearly, and yet you're saying

that this money is rolling in from other countries. How do you square those two? Now, before you listen to Donald Trump's words, I wanna warn you, there is not even a hint of an answer in what he says. It is just Trump gibberish after a reporter's question,

a good question. This is the kind of gibberish for which most of the Washington news media thinks Donald Trump deserves great credit for taking so many questions from reporters. Most of the Washington news media does not care at all that what Donald Trump says in response to their questions varies

from utterly empty and nonsensical to outright screaming lies. Here's that question followed by Donald Trump's words.

Yesterday in the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts said that tariffs are taxes, that they're paid by Americans. He said this pretty clearly. And yet you're saying that this money is rolling in from other countries. How do you how do you square those two?

It is. It's coming in because they've charged us. You know, those same countries that you talk about are charging us massive amounts of money. If you look at the tariffs over the years that were put on our heads, there's a reason we're $38 trillion out. Now that money's going to start coming down.

But we had presidents that didn't know how to use tariffs.

We had presidents that had no understanding of business. In other words, he has no idea how to respond to what the Chief Justice said, that the Trump tariffs are taxes and they are taxes on the American people. And this time, there was a follow-up.

So then do you agree then that Americans are paying those tariffs?

I think, no, I don't agree. I think that they might be paying something.

And there it is. Donald Trump finally asked about Americans paying for his tariffs and he says, quote, I think, no, I don't agree. I think that they might be paying something. Something? Really? That's a new one, something.

China was paying all of those tariffs until today, when now apparently we are paying something. As was established in the Supreme Court yesterday, to the agreement of all nine Supreme Court justices, the Trump tariffs are taxes, taxes on the American people. Chief Justice John Roberts said,

yes, sure, the tariffs are a tax, and that's a core power of Congress. And the chief also said, the vehicle is imposition of taxes on Americans, and that has always been the core power of Congress. Justice Amy Coney Barrett raised the issue of the Trump tariffs having to be refunded

if the Supreme Court rules against the Trump tariffs, if the Supreme Court agrees with the other federal courts that the Trump tariffs are illegal and unconstitutional. And when asked about that today, Donald Trump told this lie.

You know, we have to pay back trillions of dollars. We've taken in trillions. We haven't taken in billions. We've taken in trillions of dollars.

That is a lie. That is actually trillions of lies. The total amount of tariff revenue collected by the United States Treasury this year is $195 billion.

That is roughly the same amount by the United States Treasury this year is $195 billion.

That is roughly the same amount that the Internal Revenue Service refunds to taxpayers in a typical year. The Treasury knows how to refund billions of dollars when it takes too much money from people. In fact, Donald Trump's Justice Department lawyers in appealing the Trump tariff case

to the United States Supreme Court assured the appeals court and the Supreme Court in writing that they could easily pay back the tariffs if they lose the case. The Treasury has very precise records of who paid the tariffs at the port of entry for all of the goods that have been illegally tariffed by Donald Trump here in the United States. And the Treasury knows exactly how to refund that money. After Donald Trump's terrible day

in the Supreme Court yesterday, the conservative Wall Street Journal posted an editorial today saying that the Supreme Court should rule unanimously nine to nothing against Donald Trump on his illegal and unconstitutional tariffs.

And after Donald Trump's apparently bad day at the Supreme Court yesterday, he had a bad day in court again today with one of his malicious prosecutions, a Trumpian abuse of legal process. A jury in Washington, D.C. found 37-year-old Sean Dunn not guilty of assault on a heavily armed Border Patrol officer who was dressed for combat on the streets of Washington, D.C. The Trump Justice Department first tried to obtain an indictment against Sean Dunn from a grand jury for felony assault.

But a Washington DC grand jury refused to give Donald Trump's prosecutors that indictment. And today a Washington DC trial jury refused to convict Sean Dunn of assault with a sandwich, that sandwich that you just saw him throw. Donald Trump's absurdly incompetent and intemperate

U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro, a graduate of the Fox Propaganda Channel, led the failed prosecution of Sean Dunn. The sandwich that bounced off the body armor of Gregory Lamore, probably without his ability to even feel it, was described in the New York Times

as, quote, a wilting subway sandwich. A photograph of that sandwich on the sidewalk became an exhibit in the case that the jury was able to study. Apparently it didn't look very threatening to them. Gregory Lermore, who was dressed and armed for war, is a Customs and Border Protection agent

who took the witness stand in the case where he tried under oath to convince a jury that he was assaulted with a sandwich. And so Gregory Lairmore takes his place in Customs and Border Protection history as the only officer in their history

to claim to have been assaulted by a sandwich and to make a federal case out of it and to lose that federal case because a Washington, D.C. jury had no problem at all understanding the truth despite all the King's prosecutors trying their best.

That is how Donald Trump is deploying his forces. Donald Trump is not rushing people to air traffic control towers to improve air travel. In fact, Donald Trump has fired FAA officials this year. Fired them for no reason at all. Elon Musk wanted to fire them.

That was good enough. Elon Musk thought that was a great idea. Let's do it. And now you have a crisis in air travel in America. Now you have a government shutdown created by Donald Trump that makes that crisis in air travel worse, and Donald Trump is doing absolutely nothing about it.

He did nothing about it today. If you're worried about your airline reservations, Donald Trump isn't. He did nothing to help you today. He's trying to put the sandwich guy in jail today. Because Donald Trump is oblivious to the real world. Donald Trump's teammates all fly private. They own their own jets like Elon Musk. Or they've been provided now with government jets

like Donald Trump's FBI director, who uses the FBI jet for date night in America because his girlfriend lives in Nashville and he lives in Washington, D.C. Like Donald Trump's FBI director, who uses the FBI jet for date night in America because his girlfriend lives in Nashville and he lives in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump's incompetent Secretary of Homeland Security, the dog-killing enthusiast, Kristi Noem, has ordered new private jets at a cost of $180 million to taxpayers in a federal budget

that Donald Trump thinks cannot afford to fund food stamps. She wants the new planes so that she and her constant companion don't have to check their boarding passers to see which boarding group they're in. No one in Trump world has to worry

about a flight being canceled. No one. They have no idea what that feels like. No one working for Donald Trump is worried tonight that they might not get home for Thanksgiving because their flight might be cancelled. Donald Trump is the most oblivious human being who has ever lived in the White House, surrounded by the most oblivious cabinet and the most oblivious White House staff in history, not one of them is worried about the government shutdown disrupting anything about their lives.

They leave the worrying to everyone headed to an American airport tomorrow. They leave the worrying to everyone wondering if they will be able to get enough food this month. They leave the worrying to the millions of people whose healthcare costs are going to skyrocket simply because Donald Trump is president. The man who cannot see the suffering even when it is right there in the room with him

as it was today with a man on the floor behind Donald Trump in medical distress. A man whose name Donald Trump did not even know and didn't even bother to find out. If this week's massive election victory for Democrats indicates what will happen

in the next congressional election, then we have one more year of this version of the Trump presidency before the Speaker of the House, Hakeem Jeffries, will be in a position Hakeem Jeffries, will be in a position to force Donald Trump to deal with him and the real needs of so many Americans who Donald