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Possible public missteps

One instance where Trump was publicly rebuked for his handling of a tragedy was after the death of U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed in Niger last October.

Trump's call to the soldier's widow, Myeshia Johnson, prompted a political firestorm, and she spoke to ABC News about how upset she was by the call.

\"It made me cry cause I was very angry at the tone of his voice and how he said he couldn’t remember my husband’s name,\" Myeshia Johnson said on \"Good Morning America.\"

\"PHOTO:
Joe Raedle/Getty Images, FILE
PHOTO: Myeshia Johnson kisses the casket of her husband U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson during his burial service at the Memorial Gardens East cemetery, Oct. 21, 2017, in Hollywood, Florida.
>

\"The only way he remembered my husband's name is because he told me he had my husband’s report in front of him and that’s when he actually said La David. I heard him stumblin' on trying to remember my husband’s name and that’s what hurt me the most, because if my husband is out here fighting for our country and he risked his life for our country why can’t you remember his name,\" she said.

At the time, Trump called her description a \"total fabrication.\"

Kamarck, the Brookings Institution fellow, pointed to a recent tweet as another example of when Trump stumbled while practicing the \"consoler-in-chief\" role.

His decision to accuse the FBI of missing signs about the Parkland, Florida, shooter because of its involvement in the Russian election interference investigation was particularly \"tone deaf,\" Kamarck said.

\"To conflate the tragedy at Parkland with the FBI investigation into Russian hacking was completely insensitive,\" Kamarck noted.

She said Trump handles national tragedies \"in the same way he handles everything else, which is that his own ego gets in the way of his performance.\"

That said, Khachigian thinks the public may be raising the bar too high in terms of the expectations for the president in times of crisis.

\"I think sometimes we tend to overstate the importance and role of the president of the United States and in responding to each and every national crisis. I think we've just come to expect that, I suppose, but a lot of times maybe our expectations are too high,\" he said.

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