Josh Dawsey in the Post on the nightmare zombie visit of Trump to the Florida hospital yesterday.

President Trump, as he often does while responding to natural disasters, mass shootings or unfolding crises, spent much of his time congratulating the responders instead of memorializing the victims of Wednesday’s school shooting during a visit here Friday.

Trump, in two quick stops at a hospital and sheriff’s office near the school where 17 were killed and scores were injured, praised the doctors, police officers, fire officials and others who responded quickly to the mass shooting in Parkland, casting their response as heroic and record-setting.

“Incredible job, and everybody is talking about it,” Trump said of the response, with dozens of officers flanking a large circular conference room table on the fifth floor of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.

No, what everybody is talking about is the horror of what happened, the students and teachers who were killed, the grief and terror and loss and anguish. The fact that emergency personnel responded quickly is not the core of the story.

“They were in really great shape,” he said of the families.

Yeah I’m sure they were ecstatic that their kids were in the hospital after being shot at school, and that some of their kids’ classmates are dead. I’m sure they’re in fabulous shape, ready to run a marathon, in peak tip-top happy condition.

“The job they’ve done is incredible, and I want to congratulate you,” Trump said as he shook the hand of Dr. Igor Nichiporenko at the hospital.

Not exactly. He thrust his hand out at the doctor, and when the doctor slowly took it, he yanked it hard.

https://youtu.be/zWftDoNYHYo

He said he was impressed with the speed with which first responders reacted, calling it “record-setting” and “in one case, 20 minutes” from the school to the hospital.

“It’s an incredible thing,” Trump said. He later said the officers deserve a raise.

It’s a wonder he didn’t talk about what kind of gas mileage they got.

He did not give an emotional or rousing commemoration to the victims — like President Barack Obama’s after a mass shooting at a Charleston, S.C., church — nor did he publicly greet any families whose children were killed in the attack. Speaking at a funeral or a large vigil was not on the agenda. There were no calls for American resolve. There were no tears.

The visits were quick. For instance, Friday night, he was in the hospital for about 35 minutes, speaking to the news media for about 45 seconds.

There was no feeling, no understanding, no sorrow, no empathy, no concern, no compassion, no normal human reaction of any kind. He might as well have been playing golf. The most he could manage was that “It’s saaad that a thing like this could happen” – but that’s his “sad,” the one he puts at the end of his angry tweets, and he cut himself off instantly with “but the speed with which they got there was incredible” – as if to say let’s not get all mawkish here.

It’s chilling to watch. We know he’s empty, but seeing him demonstrate it at times like this…it’s dreadful.

Meanwhile Trump sticks to his policy of hiring foreign workers for his own enterprises.

A Vox analysis of hiring records for seasonal workers at three Trump properties in New York and Florida revealed that only one out of 144 jobs went to a US worker from 2016 to the end of 2017. Foreign guest workers with H-2B visas got the rest.

Why would that be? Because they accept lower pay and crappier working conditions.

The H-2B visa program allows seasonal, non-agricultural employers — like hotels and ski resorts — to hire foreign workers when they can’t find American ones. The Trump administration temporarily expanded this guest-worker program in 2017 while restricting other avenues of legal immigration, including the H-1B program for high-skilled workers.

The Trump Organization is exactly the kind of company that relies on the H-2B visa program for low-skilled workers.

And Trump is exactly the kind of human who is eager to pay his employees as little as possible.

Under the H-2B program, employers must first try to hire American workers — or legal immigrants already in the United States — at reasonable wages for their openings. If they can’t find qualified US workers, then employers can ask the Department of Labor for permission to hire foreign guest workers on H-2B visas. Documents show that hiring managers at the Trump establishments made the minimum efforts required by law to recruit US workers.

Remember that story last year? In which the Mar-a-Lago managers put a tiny ad in one obscure paper for about 5 minutes, and that was it. Also they interviewed one American worker but did not hire her.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for immigration restrictions, said he was “displeased” when Trump temporarily expanded the H-2B program in 2017. He said Mar-a-Lago is just using the program how other employers use it: as a way to avoid paying higher wages or offering more benefits to attract American workers.

“It’s a bullshit law written to ensure that employers don’t have to hire Americans,” said Krikorian, who normally applauds the president’s immigration agenda.

No doubt he still does; it’s the hiring practices he’s objecting to.

In the past five years, a few of Trump’s golf clubs and resorts on the East Coast have relied heavily on hiring foreign workers to serve patrons during the summer months (in New York) and the winter months (in Florida). The H-2B database shows requests from Mar-a-Lago dating back to 2013. This practice has clearly not stopped since Trump became president.

In fact, the Trump administration temporarily expanded the H-2B program. In July 2017, the Department of Homeland Security raised the cap on H-2B visas for guest workers from 66,000 to 81,000 for fiscal year 2017. (Three days later, Trump’s properties asked for permission to hire 76 workers through the program.)

Tactful of him to wait three whole days.

Trump yesterday found time to make survivors of the Florida massacre smile in his photo op, but not to say anything about stopping Putin and gang trashing what there is of our democracy.

After more than a dozen Russians and three companies were indicted on Friday for interfering in the 2016 elections, President Trump’s first reaction was to claim personal vindication: “The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!” he wrote on Twitter.

He voiced no concern that a foreign power had been trying for nearly four years to upend American democracy, much less resolve to stop it from continuing to do so this year.

None, zip, zero. His first concern was for himself, and his second concern was for himself, and then he had a plane to catch.

Rather than condemn Russia for its actions, Mr. Trump in the past has said he accepts the denial offered by President Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Trump has not imposed new sanctions called for in a law passed by Congress last year to retaliate for the attack on America’s political system, or teamed up with European leaders to counter a common threat. He has not led a concerted effort to harden election systems in the United States with midterm congressional elections on the horizon, or pressed lawmakers to pass legislation addressing the situation.

Instead he’s done

• nothing
• nothing
• nothing

We have plenty of photos of him grinning and poking his thumb up in front of his gut though.

Michael A. McFaul, an ambassador to Moscow under President Barack Obama, called Mr. Trump’s reaction to the indictments “shockingly weak” and said he should instead have criticized Mr. Putin for violating American sovereignty or even announced plans to punish Moscow.

“Instead, he just focused on his own campaign,” Mr. McFaul said. “America was attacked, and our commander in chief said nothing in response. He looks weak, not only in Moscow but throughout the world.”

And not just weak; also indifferent, also self-absorbed and self-serving, also incompetent, also clueless, also reckless and irresponsible, also profoundly stupid.

Mr. Trump’s own aides readily acknowledge the reality that he does not. Besides describing Russian interference as undeniable on Saturday, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, his national security adviser, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, said Mr. Mueller’s charges made clear that Russia had been engaged in a “sophisticated form of espionage” against the United States.

“With the F.B.I. indictment, the evidence is now really incontrovertible and available in the public domain,” he said.

But the stuffed dummy at the top just keeps watching tv and paying sadistic hospital visits.

You in the bed, you too.

Smile as if you mean it.

How dare he.

Oh christ. You think he can’t go any lower and then…

Our entire Nation, w/one heavy heart, continues to pray for the victims & their families in Parkland, FL. To teachers, law enforcement, first responders & medical professionals who responded so bravely in the face of danger: We THANK YOU for your courage! https://t.co/3yJsrebZMG pic.twitter.com/ti791dENTy

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018

My god he is standing there grinning and doing a thumbs up gesture!

He’s standing by a victim’s hospital bed in a sea of forced grins for his photo op!

He’s clapping his hands!

He collected all the nearby staff and made them grin next to him and his horrible thumb!

And, to top it off, he again treats the slaughter at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas school as if it were an earthquake or a tornado rather than a human act that better laws could have prevented.

Ugh god I have seldom seen such a disgusting quartet of photos.

Updating to add: I was wrong about the clapping. A larger version of the photo reveals that Melania is making an open hands gesture while listening to the white coat person, while Donald has his folded in front of him.

Trump is back at Mar-a-Lago, and on the way there he stopped off at a hospital in Pompano Beach that took in eight of the victims of Nikolas Cruze.

The president and Mrs. Trump, visited the Broward Health North Hospital “to pay their respects and thank the medical professionals for their life-saving assistance,” according to a statement related by a White House spokeswoman on Friday evening.

When asked if he met with victims, President Trump said: “Yes, I did. I did indeed.”

“It’s sad something like that could happen,” he said.

Mr. Trump did not respond when he was asked if gun laws needed to be changed. He then walked into another room.

The Trumps, according to the statement, were also scheduled to travel to the Broward County Sheriff’s office to meet with “the law enforcement officials whose bravery helped save lives.”

Thanks, Mr President.

Conor Friedersdorf reminds us that Trump specifically and explicitly promised that what happened at that Florida school yesterday would not happen under his regime.

In his inaugural address, Donald Trump declared, “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” He knew it would not. We know it did not.

“I’ll be able to make sure that when you walk down the street in your inner city, or wherever you are, you’re not going to be shot,” he declared during the campaign. “Your child isn’t going to be shot.” He has not been able to make sure of that––ask any parent whose children were caught up in any of the recent school shootings.

Trump gave those credulous enough to believe him false hope.

“The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end,” he vowed at the Republican National Convention. “Beginning on January 20, 2017, safety will be restored.” But safety was not restored that day. Neither crime nor violence ended. The vow was a cynical ploy to get votes.

It was that, but it was also a dogwhistle for the racists and anti-immigrants. We were meant to think “crime and violence”=brown people.

Earlier in his tenure, a gunman in Las Vegas killed 58 and injured 851 in the deadliest mass shooting ever committed in the United States. Trump had no plan to stop such an attack, nor did he do anything after the fact that would prevent a similar attack. Such attacks are beyond anyone’s capacity to wholly eliminate, but no one else rose to power falsely promising they could stop such things.

Well, the gunman in Las Vegas was a white guy. White guys aren’t murderers or criminals, they’re Totally Random Insane People Who Just Go Pow All of a Sudden. They’re a force of nature that no one can accurately predict because they’re Just Too Random.