Trump said he hasn't cried since childhood. Here's why that's nothing to brag about.
President Donald Trump accused Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of fake crying during a press conference opposing the recent refugee and immigration executive order.
"I know him very well," Trump told reporters. "I don't see him as a crier. If he is, he's a different man. There's about a 5% chance it was real, but I think they were fake tears."
Trump's pointed attack ignores the fact that Schumer's great-grandmother and many of her children were killed in the Holocaust, so his reaction to a drastic measure preventing refugees from safe harbor may be an emotional one. Even without that familial context, Schumer's impassioned response to stranded and separated families in his home state seems more than appropriate.
Schumer stands with recently resettled refugees to push for an overturn of Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigration to the United States for refugees and some Muslim travelers at a press conference in New York. Photo by Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images.
It wasn't the first time Trump has dinged someone for crying.
He has a long history of dismissing or shaming people crying. He's called out Glenn Beck, John Boehner, and Jeb Bush on Twitter for crying or being "cry babies" and falsely accused ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz of crying on air after the election.
Boehner wipes a tear as Rep. Nancy Pelosi looks on during a ceremony to award the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously to Constantino Brumidi in 2012. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.
Despite Trump's aversion to it, there are many benefits to crying backed by science and research.
Physiologically, there are actually three types of tears: emotional, basal, and reflex.
Emotional tears are a reaction to stress or strong feelings, basal tears keep eyes lubricated, and reflex tears are secreted in response to irritants like dust or onion. All three types of tears are made up of enzymes, oils, mucus, and antibodies in saltwater. Each type of tear possess distinct molecules that are distinguishable under a microscope. William Frey, a biochemist, pharmacologist, and expert on the topic of tears, found that emotional tears contain stress hormones that are expelled from the body through crying.
President Bill Clinton tells the congregation of Mason Temple Church of God, "You've brought tears to my eyes" after listening to the previous speakers. Photo by Paul Richards/AFP/Getty Images.
Whether or not crying expels stress-related toxins from the body, the act of crying is a positive release.
"Letting down one's guard and one's defenses and [crying] is a very positive, healthy thing," Stephen Sideroff, a clinical psychologist at UCLA, told WebMD. And empathetic crying — in response to watching a touching movie or reading something sad in the news — has the same effect. "That process of opening into yourself ... it's like a lock and key," Sideroff said.
Tears drip down President George W. Bush's cheek during an East Room ceremony to present a posthumous Medal of Honor. Photo by Brian Aho/U.S. Navy via Getty Images.
Conversely, stifling or holding back tears may temporarily elevate your heart rate or blood pressure as your body's sympathetic nervous system (your fight-or-flight response) works overtime to figure out what's going on.
Not to mention, emotional crying is uniquely human and reveals our empathy for others.
President Barack Obama cried while he spoke to the country following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wept openly after being reunited with a Syrian refugee he welcomed to the country a year prior. Vice President Joe Biden dabbed his eyes while being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner was frequently moved to tears during award presentations, speeches, stirring songs, and on election night.
Biden (left) wipes his eyes as Obama presents him with Medal of Freedom. Obama (right) cries as he talks about the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Photos by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images and Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
What a gift it is to feel so moved by someone else's story, to feel their joy or misery as if it were your own. What an admirable thing it is to dedicate your life to a goal and see it come to fruition. That kind of empathy and passion shouldn't be seen as a weakness. It should be rewarded and encouraged.
That's the kind of strong, dedicated leadership we need in trying times. Someone who understands who they're working for and why we need each other.
Attorney General Eric Holder wipes his eye while resigning his position during an announcement. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.
But Trump says he hasn't cried since he was a baby.
Not for the birth of his children or on his wedding days. Not the deaths of his parents and brother. Not for the thousands of victims on 9/11, the children of Sandy Hook, or the men and women murdered in Charleston. Nothing. That's not strength. It's emptiness. It's cowardice. It's the kind of emotionless leadership that will prevent us from moving forward as a united country.
So whether or not he's cried, Trump could stand to do it more often.
To look in the face of the people and families his policies affect at home and abroad and find the joy or tragedy in someone else's story. He can take a cue from Schumer and Boehner and others and bring some emotion to his work. Not just to remind all of us he's human, but to remind himself.
Photo by Mandel Ngan AFP/Getty Images.
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An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
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Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.