--- 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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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## 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. 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