Presidential Character Matters When Leading a Nation in Mourning
December 17, 2025
The dark and dismal political weather afflicting the White House, punctuated by another missed opportunity for President Donald Trump to exert a degree of moral leadership by consoling a nation stricken with grief following yet another deadly school shooting and the murder of an iconic film director, as well as the horrific, antisemitic massacre of Jews celebrating the first day of Hannukah at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, will not soon disappear. President Trump’s hollow response to the grizzly murder of students at Brown University–“things happen”—and his decision to dance on the grave of Rob Reiner, who had previously criticized him, laid bare his failure to understand that the “Presidency is not merely an administrative office,” as Franklin D. Roosevelt observed, “it is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.”
In a cruel and grotesque Truth Social post, Trump made the tragic murders of Rob and Michele Reiner about himself. Only Donald Trump, who refers to himself in the third person, would invent a disease in his own name. No, it is not Narcissism; an ancient poet, Ovid, and 19th Century psychiatrists beat him to it. In essence, Trump claimed that Reiner had invited his own murder, alleging that the beloved Hollywood icon suffered from “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” which, impliedly, had caused some unknown person to exact revenge against Reiner for his criticisms of the president. Of course, no evidence exists to indicate that the murder was politically inspired; indeed, the tragedy is deepened by the double murder charges against the Reiners’ troubled son, who has dealt with drug addiction for half his life.
Trump’s tasteless, classless and mocking post is beneath the dignity of an American President. Sadly, it reflects his character, his lack of empathy and lack of humanity. Anyone who has criticized Trump automatically becomes an enemy, a target for retribution. Just ask Sen. John McCain, whom he refused to recognize as a war hero, despite five years in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, in which he was frequently tortured by his captors for his patriotic refusal to denounce the United States. And consider Trump’s cold, callous and heartless response, upon learning that the insurrectionists who were attacking Congress on January 6, 2021, were trying to kill his own Vice President, Mike Pence, who refused to violate his constitutional duty in service of Trump’s desire to illegally remain in power: “Who cares?”
At this moment in America, we are far removed from the leadership, spirit and soothing words of Abraham Lincoln, who guided the Union through the most traumatic time in our nation’s history. As the Civil War wound to a close, Lincoln, in his Second Inaugural Address, delivered on March 4, 1865, finished with words that seem fleeting, remote and impossible to imagine in our time: “With malice toward none and charity for all….” Scholars and historians will never confuse Trump with Lincoln, but Americans of every political stripe and color deserve a president who can set aside his prejudices and, for a moment, think not of himself, but of the nation.
Frederick Douglas, the abolitionist and editor who had escaped slavery in Maryland, attended Lincoln’s inaugural address and said it “sounded more like a sermon than a state paper.” Douglas was right: “the conscience of the nation must be roused.” It is incumbent upon the president to set a moral course for the nation. No other elected official has a comparable bully pulpit to “rouse the conscience of the nation,” to stir the soul of America, to console the grieving and chart a course that will inspire behavior that can give meaning to our ancient creed, the words set forth in the Declaration of Independence, and hail the virtues of democracy. These are high responsibilities that we hope the president will embrace. Late in the afternoon, on March 4, President Lincoln asked Frederick Douglas what he had thought of his speech. “Mr. Lincoln,” Douglas said, “that was a sacred effort.” Americans don’t expect their president to rise to every occasion, but there should be “a sacred effort” to do so. The presidency is a test of character. The moral force of the presidency affords abundant possibilities for leadership when the nation is grieving. It is in such a moment that we recall Woodrow Wilson’s observation that the president can be “as big a man as he can.” Not small and petty.
-David Adler