--- title: Donald Trump's Lizard Brain: Presidential Campaign MSNBC description: On "Morning Joe" Thursday, I got into a bit of a kerfuffle with the host when I said that Donald Trump was operating out of... canonical: https://time.com/4228885/donald-trump-lizard-brain/ author: Joe Klein article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-18T15:00:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:56:13.508Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump's Lizard Brain: Presidential Campaign MSNBC og:description: On "Morning Joe" Thursday, I got into a bit of a kerfuffle with the host when I said that Donald Trump was operating out of... og:url: https://time.com/4228885/donald-trump-lizard-brain/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1469f544258152fb/69887e23196cf476b203a624/donald-trump-portrait.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5184 og:image:height: 2916 og:image:alt: Donald Trump og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump's Lizard Brain: Presidential Campaign MSNBC twitter:description: On "Morning Joe" Thursday, I got into a bit of a kerfuffle with the host when I said that Donald Trump was operating out of... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1469f544258152fb/69887e23196cf476b203a624/donald-trump-portrait.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump's Lizard Brain > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=7a6ed04b-f660-411d-afeb-6eaa3cb5c864&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Candidates: Watch a Donald Trump Rally In Super Slow Motion [Watch (HLS stream): The Candidates: Watch a Donald Trump Rally In Super Slow Motion](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/KMpivG6M.m3u8) (9:23)  _Published 2016-02-07. This video captures Donald Trump at almost 1000 frames per second._ by [Joe Klein](https://time.com/author/joe-klein/) ## Joe Klein Feb 18, 2016 3:00 PM UTC  Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump campaigns in Bluffton, S.C. on Feb. 17, 2016. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump campaigns in Bluffton, S.C. on Feb. 17, 2016. Matt Rourke—AP by [Joe Klein](https://time.com/author/joe-klein/) ## Joe Klein Feb 18, 2016 3:00 PM UTC On “Morning Joe” Thursday, I got into a bit of a kerfuffle with the host when I said that Donald Trump was operating out of his lizard brain. Joe Scarborough apparently thought I was denigrating Trump–and I was, but not in the way Scarborough thought. First of all, the [lizard brain ](http://thelizard-brain.com/definitions/def%5Fli.html)is an actual part of our brain, the amygdala–the most primitive part, governing fight or flight impulses, sexual impulses and our involuntary nervous system (breathing, heart beat, etc.). We all have a lizard brain, including me and Joe Scarborough. But we also have a frontal cortex, which is the site of thinking and reason. I would argue that Trump’s appeal is not to reason, but to more primordial impulses–like fear (especially when it comes to fighting or fleeing). Scarborough also challenged me when I said that Trump wasn’t a particularly good dealmaker. I said this after praising Mika Brzezinski for a question she asked on last night’s MSNBC “forum” with Trump, held Wednesday night. She cleverly listed some characteristics of a candidate and asked who Trump thought it was. It was clear from the jump that (a) this was a trick question and (b) that the candidate she was describing was Bernie Sanders. Trump thought she was describing him–_very_ revealing, I’d say. Trump has no apparent knowledge of anything beyond himself, a tragic quality in a negotiator, and one which calls into question Trump’s claim to be a dealmaker. Joe cited Trump’s fabulous business history, which I would say was more gaudy than fabulous—[there _are_ those four bankruptcies](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/21/carly-fiorina/trumps-four-bankruptcies/)—and more attributable to his success as a genius marketer than as a dealmaker (although he obviously knew enough to hire a few good negotiators along the way). The fact is, Trump knows very little about public policy, just enough to be a populist rabble-rouser. Scarborough seems to think that Trump had something going for him because all these people–a minority of the Republican party–were voting for him. “Are they dumb?” he asked me. I would prefer to call them reflexively angry and under-informed. Our job as journalists is to try to inform them. I wish we were spending more time on that—on pointing out Trump’s false claims and general ignorance—than on his sleight-of-hand, the phony lawsuits that he’ll never file, the wild slurs against his competitors and the misleading, over-simplistic positions he’s taken on serious matters of state. But I guess I’m just an old fogey. ## Transcript Get him out of here please. Get him out. Get him out, get him out. Unbelievable. Get him out. [ MUSIC ] USA, USA, USA, USA. USA, USA! So ridiculous. Alright, get them out! Get them out. Get them out of there. [ MUSIC ] Come on. Let's go, Scott. Come on, Scott. Let's go. Get them out. [ NOISE ] Thank you. Don't hurt him. Don't hurt him. Do not hurt him please. I've done it both ways. I've done it rough, and I get criticized. I did it really rough. We had this one guy, really bad guy. He was swing and punching people. And I'm screaming, get him outta here, get him out, the place is going wild. The next day I got killed in the press. They said we were mean and horrible. You know four people ended up, one guy had a broken nose a black eye and I was rough. Right, the next day we had a similar kind of thing and I said do me a favor, don't hurt them. Don't hurt them, because of the press, don't hurt them. Easy and the next day they accused me of not being not strong enough. Do you believe it? And now I'm getting credit. They give me credit for vision. You know, vision's very important. You're running for president, you need vision, right? [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ] [ SOUND ] [ NOISE ] [ MUSIC ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ MUSIC ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ SOUND ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ MUSIC ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ MUSIC ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4228885/donald-trump-lizard-brain/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4228885/donald-trump-lizard-brain/"},"headline":"Donald Trump's Lizard Brain","datePublished":"2016-02-18T15:00:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:56:13.508Z","description":"On \"Morning Joe\" Thursday, I got into a bit of a kerfuffle with the host when I said that Donald Trump was operating out of...","url":"https://time.com/4228885/donald-trump-lizard-brain/","keywords":["Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1469f544258152fb/69887e23196cf476b203a624/donald-trump-portrait.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Joe Klein","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/joe-klein/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1469f544258152fb/69887e23196cf476b203a624/donald-trump-portrait.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Donald Trump","caption":"Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump campaigns in Bluffton, S.C. on Feb. 17, 2016.","creditText":"Matt Rourke—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4228885/donald-trump-lizard-brain/","name":"Donald Trump's Lizard Brain"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Candidates: Watch a Donald Trump Rally In Super Slow Motion","description":"This video captures Donald Trump at almost 1000 frames per second.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/KMpivG6M/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-02-07T22:33:23.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/KMpivG6M.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4228885/donald-trump-lizard-brain/","duration":"PT9M23S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4228885/donald-trump-lizard-brain/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```