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A White House spokesperson said that by \"unrelated,\" the president meant \"not his family but both people he has a connection to as well as some he didn’t know.\"

The official declined to share the names or details of those people or put ABC News in touch with them but cited an example of a man who knew Trump writing to him that his mother had fallen ill with COVID-19. Trump called the man, whose mother survived, in order \"to express his concern and offer his personal encouragement and thoughts,\" the official said.

\"PHOTO:
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
PHOTO: President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and Florida Governor Rick Scott, right, tour damage from Hurricane Michael in Lynn Haven, Florida, Oct. 15, 2018.
>

In late April, The Washington Post published an analysis of three weeks' worth of Trump's daily briefings on the coronavirus and found he had spent just 4 1/2 minutes -- out of more than 13 hours -- expressing condolences for victims. He devoted two hours to launching attacks and 45 minutes to praising himself and his administration, the Post found.

In the days that followed that report, Trump read from prepared remarks at the start of his public appearances about the toll the virus has taken on victims. \"We grieve by their side as one family,\" he said on April 27.

Three days later, asked if he would lower the flag at the White House, Trump said, \"I don't think anybody can feel any worse than I do about all of the death and destruction that is so needless.\"

'That's just not part of who he is'

While Trump has avoided much interaction with victims of the coronavirus, he has over the course of his time in office traveled to disaster zones and met with shooting survivors.

The president has also made several trips to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to honor the returning remains of service members, describing it as the \"most unpleasant thing I do.\"

He has spoken about how difficult it is to sign letters to the relatives of deceased service members. \"It's the hardest thing I have to do in this job,\" he said in October. \"I hate it.\"

His visits to sites of tragedy have sometimes been clouded by controversy, such as when he smiled and flashed a thumbs up while posing with an orphaned baby after a shooting in El Paso, or when he enthusiastically tossed enthusiastically tossed rolls of paper towels into a crowd of Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria devastated their island.

\"PHOTO:
Evan Vucci/AP
PHOTO: President Donald Trump tosses paper towels into a crowd as he hands out supplies at Calvary Chapel, Oct. 3, 2017, in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico.
>

\"What it reminds me of is an awkward adolescent boy who's brought for the first time to a family funeral,\" presidential historian Barbara Perry told ABC News. \"He doesn't know quite what to say, and the body language is odd.\"

Perry, a professor and director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, said Trump seems to have \"never learned how to be empathetic\" and that his brash personality and style have failed to meet the needs of a crisis-stricken American public willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt.

\"That's just not part of who he is,\" she said. \"That's not how he got elected.\"

From Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address to Franklin D. Roosevelt's \"fireside chats,\" presidents have long sought to bind the nation's wounds and give comfort, according to Perry.

That approach has accelerated in recent decades, with lofty speeches at times of national tragedy -- Ronald Reagan's remarks after the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, or Bill Clinton's after the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing -- and emotional encounters with victims.

\"They're the symbolic representative of the entire American people,\" Widmer, a former adviser to Clinton, said. \"They're the healer in chief, also, when something goes wrong.\"

Former President Barack Obama described meeting the parents of elementary school students gunned down in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, as the most difficult day of his presidency; he wiped away tears multiple times in the wake of that shooting. Several years later, Obama brought a community to its feet as he sang \"Amazing Grace\" during the eulogy for a pastor killed in a shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

\"PHOTO:
Win McNamee/Getty Images
PHOTO: President Donald Trump arrives in the Rose Garden for the daily briefing of the coronavirus task force at the White House, April 27, 2020.
>

Presidents other than Trump have taken flack for a perceived lack of sensitivity, too, such as when George W. Bush was roundly criticized in 2015 for flying over the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina wreaked its havoc there.

Trump in recent months has missed an opportunity to unite Americans, perhaps with a visit to a hospital, or even his hometown of New York City, Widmer said.

\"Americans want a healer, they really do,\" he said. \"It's not partisan at that point. It's a people in pain. They want their president to, if not heal them, at least comfort them. And right now, we have a comfort deficit.\"

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