What Donald Trump and Anthony Weiner Have in Common



Michael Barbaro

THE RUN-UP SEPT. 2, 2016
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CreditLeft: Sam Hodgson for the New York Times; Right: Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

A last-minute trip to a country you mock. Or a screaming tirade from the floor of Congress. An angry late-night tweet to a foreign leader. Or a half-naked selfie sent to a stranger.

It is the kind of behavior we see in a particular variety of politician — most often, I’ll just say it, men. From New York. Who love social media.

Any guesses?

In the latest episode of The Run Up, we explore two forces that have endeared and alarmed us in political life this year: impulsiveness and narcissism. And we examine two men, Donald J. Trump and Anthony D. Weiner, who have at times embodied both qualities. Both have ridden those attributes to dizzying political highs but also found they take a toll, raising doubts about their judgment and fitness for public office.
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The Run-Up
Episode 8Narcissism and Impulse Control



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I spoke with two people who have studied both men for years: Frank Bruni, a columnist and former political reporter at The Times, and Maggie Haberman, a national campaign reporter whom I first met covering Mr. Weiner back in 2009.

“To get to a certain level of success as a politician in the current context — with the cameras on you all the time, with social media, with all of this 24-7 attention — you have to be able to be a bit of a performer,” Mr. Bruni says. “That requires a certain amount of loving the crowd, a certain amount of narcissism. That’s the price of entry.”

Part of Mr. Trump’s strength as a performer is his mastery of reading the room. We saw that on display with the stark contrast between his performance in Mexico City on Wednesday afternoon and in Phoenix that night, Ms. Haberman says.

“Trump’s impulses are to please whatever crowd he is in front of and to meld to whatever audience he’s speaking to,” she says. She reminds us of what Mr. Trump told The Times’s editorial board: that when he feels the energy in the crowd flagging, he goes to his line about building a wall.

“He’s coming up with what he says, and what then becomes his policy position, based on how to get the crowd to make him feel good.” Mr. Bruni says. “This is narcissism as a governing philosophy.”

With both Mr. Trump and Mr. Weiner, Ms. Haberman says, “there’s a certain A.D.D. quality to how they go about their performance or performance art, depending on how you want to describe it.”

When there’s no crowd on hand to provide the dopamine hit, Twitter does the trick. “This need for that dopamine, that need for instant gratification, I think it raises enormous questions — disqualifying questions — about both of them as potential leaders or actual leaders,” Mr. Bruni says. “There’s a big difference between what is interesting to behold and what we want to be governed by.”

Please let us know what you think of The Run-Up. You can reach us attherunup@nytimes.com, or find me on Twitter. You can also rate and review us on iTunes.