--- 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=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 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=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump's Lizard Brain ## 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. ```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"}}] ```