Image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr.
President Donald Trump’s former White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, has emerged as a frequent critic during the Republican’s second term. Perhaps this is why — in light of the news that after an assassination threat Trump switched planes, hid in a catering cart and used a separate plane containing reporters as a decoy — Scaramucci led the pack on X in ridiculing Trump as a “coward.”
“This image of Trump in the catering cart is going to be hard to shake,” Scaramucci tweeted, showing an image of Trump hiding in a cart that has not been confirmed. “You know he’s livid that it got out. If he wasn’t a coward, he would’ve told them, no chance I’m doing that.”
George Conway, a former Republican attorney who was also married to Trump's first term counsel Kellyanne Conway, took a swipe at Trump's weight with his own comment. While retweeting former President Barack Obama's NSC staffer Tommy Vietor saying "the mental image of Trump hiding from Iran in a catering cart is devastating. A weak, stupid old man hiding from the consequences of his own decision while endangering others," Conway added, "Agree. But also, I’m incredibly impressed with the physical strength and toughness of the catering cart. Wow."
Similarly Democratic strategist Christopher Webb exulted in Trump’s perceived embarrassing story, showing a montage of images purportedly showing him in various carts while posting “the catering cart memes are doing me in.”
He added, “Please add any I missed in the replies. We need this laugh.”
Speaking to AlterNet, psychiatrist Dr. Henry Abraham — formerly a professor at Tufts University and lead author of a letter earlier this year signed by three dozen medical professionals warning of the president's apparent cognitive decline — clarified that Trump’s decision to risk the lives of journalists to save himself should be viewed through the lens of his apparent narcissism.
“Calling him a coward is a moral judgment, it's not a term of art in psychology,” Abraham told AlterNet. “There's no disease called cowardice. But it is cowardly.”
Instead he clarified that Trump was willing to harm other people merely to save his own life stems from his psychological inability to empathize with others, especially those he perceives as enemies.
“He has narcissistic entitlement because he's the president,” Abraham explained. “He is entitled to be protected, but he's throwing the press corps potentially to the wolves. Is this an unethical behavior? Yes. Is this cowardly? Sure. What is the psychological underpinning of this? Well, his degree of self-absorption and his inability to have empathy with the potential risks, dangers, and suffering of others. That's who he is.”
For his part, Scaramucci had a similar observation in July about Trump. While he didn’t assess the president in clinical terms, he noted that people who work for the president do not like him personally.
“Here's what I've observed about everyone around Trump,” Scaramucci posted on X. “Nobody likes him. I don't think his family members like him. I don't think his cabinet members really like him. They kiss his a—— because he's powerful.”
Scaramucci added, “The people who genuinely like him are one or two electron orbits away, close enough to feel the warmth, far enough to avoid the heat. I don't know a single person in his inner circle who came out unscathed.”