Donald Trump began his administration with a “Me, first!” attitude. And he has held to it ever since.

On January 21, 2017—the day after he was inaugurated as President—Donald Trump visited the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Officially, he was there to pay tribute to the men and women who serve on the front lines of America’s Intelligence community.

The men and women who dedicate their lives to finding out when and where America’s enemies are planning to strike. And to countering those threats.

And now Trump was appearing before what, to CIA employees, was the agency’s most sacred site: The star-studded memorial wall honoring the 117 CIA officers who had fallen in the line of duty.

Donald Trump at the CIA

So what did Trump spend much of his time talking about?

Himself, of course.

Here are the major excerpts:

“….You know, when I was young and when I was — of course, I feel young. I feel like I’m 30, 35, 39. Somebody said, are you young? I said, I think I’m young. You know, I was stopping — when we were in the final month of that campaign, four stops, five stops, seven stops. Speeches, speeches, in front of 25,000, 30,000 people, 15,000, 19,000 from stop to stop. I feel young….”

“And I was explaining about the numbers. We did a thing yesterday at the speech. Did everybody like the speech?  I’ve been given good reviews.”

“So a reporter for Time magazine — and I have been on their cover, like, 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time Magazine. I’ve been on it for 15 times this year. I don’t think that’s a record….that can ever be broken.  Do you agree with that? What do you think?”

Fast forward more than three years later—to an America largely self-locked indoors. The reason: To avoid a deadly plague known as COVID-19, otherwise known as Coronavirus. An America where 1.68 million men, women and children have been diagnosed with the disease. And where 98,035 citizens have so far died.

And, true to form, Trump has shown no sympathy for those who have suffered. Instead, he has turned the tragedy into a celebration of his own ego.

February 28: “One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia’….They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax….It’s all turning, they lost….And this is their new hoax.”

March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for President.” 

March 12: “I mean, think of it: The United States, because of what I did and what the administration did with China, we have 32 deaths at this point. Other countries that are smaller countries have many, many deaths.”

March 27: “Nobody has done anything like we’ve been able to do And everything I took over was a mess. It was a broken country in so many ways. In so many ways.”

March 29: “President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise…”

April 26: “I work from early in the morning until late at night, haven’t left the White House in many months (except to launch Hospital Ship Comfort) in order to take care of Trade Deals, Military Rebuilding etc., and then I read a phony story in the failing @nytimes about my work….”

On April 26, The New York Times ran a story entitled: “Self-praise, hubris and self-pity: Examining 260,000 words about the Coronavirus from President Trump.” Summing up the image that Trump has tried to present of himself to the world, the Times concluded: 

“The self-regard, the credit-taking, the audacious rewriting of recent history to cast himself as the hero of the pandemic rather than the president who was slow to respond: Such have been the defining features of Trump’s use of the bully pulpit during the coronavirus outbreak….

“By far the most recurring utterances from Trump in the [White House] briefings are self-congratulations, roughly 600 of them, which are often predicated on exaggerations and falsehoods….

“Trump’s attempts to display empathy or appeal to national unity (about 160 instances) amount to only a quarter of the number of times he complimented himself or a top member of his team.”

In 1946, Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler’s architect and minister of armaments, was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for war crimes.

Albert Speer

In Albert Speer: His Batle With Truth, Gitty Sereny wrote: “This was an erudite and solitary man who, recognizing his deficiencies in human relations, had read 5,000 books in prison to try to understand the universe and human beings….Empathy is finally a gift, and cannot be learned. So, essentially returning into the world after 20 years, he remained alone.”

What Sereny says of Speer applies—in spades—to Donald Trump: Empathy is finally a gift, and cannot be learned.