A person who doesn’t love dogs or cats has, I’m certain, something missing inside. An absence of compassion, warmth, empathy. And that’s an Orange Plague thing.

During last night’s “book report” about his 150-minute dinner and White House tour with Donald Trump on Monday, 3.31, Bill Maher quoted the 47th president as saying that “a lot of the presidents had dogs for political purposes.” Maher said, a tiny bit testily, “No, people love dogs…that’s what that is.” And Donald Trump replied, “Yeah, okay, that’s true.”

The real Donald Trump, who is undoubtedly a sociopath and a morbid narcissist, is the guy who’s never had a dog (or, as far as I know, a cat) and suspects that certain dog-owning presidents were putting on a show.

The sociopathic Trump, the one who performs at the drop of a hat and plays people for his own gain (a trait shared by 97% of film industry types and even, truth be told, myself from time to time) was the “yeah, okay, that’s true” guy.

Maher’s book report was plain and straight as far as it went, but deep down this half-Irish, half-Jewish dude from a middle-class upbringing in northern New Jersey had to feel flattered and turned on by being respectfully received and treated obligingly by a White House occupant.

And yet he surely understands that Trump was playing him that night (just as Maher himself, a pothead charmer and a sharp, moderate-mannered politician in his own way, was surely playing Trump for his own gain), and that Trump wanted Maher to pass along the “hey, he plays a MAGA tyrant on camera and during contentious press interviews, but he was a decent, occasionally chuckling guy and a gracious host with me” thing. And he got that last night.

We’re all adults on this forum, and are generally well educated so I don’t need to post boilerplate definitions of sociopathic behavior, especially as it concerns high achieving types.