Dahlia Lithwick writes:

It took a tiny baby to reveal how small Donald Trump really is.

The president’s trip to Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, this week, ostensibly undertaken to comfort the mourners and the injured in the wake of two horrifying mass murder sprees that left at least 31 people dead and many more injured, went terribly, terribly wrong. The Washington Post observed on Thursday that inside the White House, the trip was generally seen as “not ideal,” in the words of one senior administration official.

Having pledged to spend the trip unifying the nation, President Donald Trump opted to comfort the grieving by attacking Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley for misrepresenting his reception at a hospital in Dayton, something neither of them actually did. He also spent Wednesday morning tweeting conspiracy theories about the Dayton shooter. Trump was evidently fuming on the return trip to Washington that video of his consolation and empathy tour had not been released fast enough; that he wasn’t getting “credit” for his compassion, prompting Dan Scavino to tweet that he was greeted as a “ROCK STAR.” Then, independent video surfaced Thursday of Trump comforting medical staff in an El Paso hospital by bragging about his crowd size at a February rally. “That was some crowd,” Trump said. “We had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot, and they said his crowd was wonderful.” [Continue reading…]