'Total sociopath': Trump buried for abrupt pivot from Kirk murder to White House ballroom
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on artificial intelligence at the Winning the AI Race Summit in Washington D.C., U.S., July 23, 2025. REUTERS Kent Nishimura
Social media appeared horrified at how easily President Donald Trump blew past the tragic assassination of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk to praise an incoming $200 million White House ballroom.
Hours after Trump exploited Kirk's assassination to stoke war against the left, Trump couldn’t stop changing the subject from Kirk to White House construction.
“How are you holding up over the last three and a half days?” asked one reporter, who’d wished Trump condolences for the loss of his friend, Kirk.
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“I think very good,” said Trump. “And by the way, right there you see all the trucks? They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they've been trying to get for about 150 years. And it's gonna be a beauty. It'll be an absolutely magnificent structure.”
Critics on X slammed the pivot.
“The normal emotions of healthy human beings are foreign to him,” posted former Wall Street Journal reporter John Harwood. “You might as well ask him to speak in Latin.”
“Zero heart. Zero sympathy,” said another commenter.
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Podcaster Briahna Joy Gray — also a former press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign — snidely posted: “Now this is how you respect a man's memory.”
Democratic influencer Joanne Carducci posted that she “vehemently disagreed with every single thing Charlie Kirk ever said, and I was able to express more empathy than this.”
Trump again spun awkwardly from Kirk to White House construction and his ballroom while speaking on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning, reports the New Republic.
“… He was very hurt when he saw this. I mean, everybody was,” Trump said of Kirk’s death. “When I heard it, I was in the midst of, you know, building a great — for 150 years they’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House, right? They don’t have a ballroom, they have to use tents on the lawn for President Xi when he comes over; if it rains it’s a wipeout, and so I was with architects that were design[ing] — it’s gonna be incredible,” Trump said.
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“The people of the United States elected a total sociopath (again),” said one critic on X. “Literally cares about no one but himself,” while another posted, “Trump can’t even pretend to care for 5 seconds.”
