WaPo's Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker toss out random red meat in "‘We’re going to take action’: Inside Trump’s shifting stance on gun rights," teased on the front page as "How Trump cast himself as the main protagonist in the unfolding gun drama."

Presumably "fish food" is an intentional allusion to an incident that came in at #6 on President Trump's "2017 Fake News Awards": "CNN FALSELY edited a video to make it appear President Trump defiantly overfed fish during a visit with the Japanese prime minister. Japanese prime minister actually led the way with the feeding."

Also in the new article:

The president, who has often struggled to convey empathy, clutched a slim notecard with reminders about how to communicate with the grieving — “I hear you,” read one — that officials said White House Communications Director Hope Hicks jotted down during a huddle with Trump to prepare for the event.

So he held a piece of paper that had 5 notes from Hope Hicks? Wouldn't you think you'd want to look at the transcript to see how many times the man you portray as empathy-challenged used the phrase Hope Hick wrote down for him? I checked. Here's the transcript. The answer is zero.

Maybe that note card will make the 2018 Fake News Awards list. Remember this story about George H.W. Bush?

There was no card, but it did sound like a talking point accidentally read out loud. H.W.'s idiosyncratic locutions could have been portrayed as charming and evidence that he really was speaking straight from the heart. As George W. Bush put it in "41: A Portrait of My Father":

At one town hall, he delivered an underwhelming line to New Hampshire voters: “Message: I care.” No doubt he did care, a lot.

That was 1992, and H.W. Bush went on to lose his bid for reelection. It was the last time a U.S. presidential incumbent lost — the time the man had to read his empathy from a card. It didn't happen then, and it didn't happen with Donald Trump. But if it makes sense to you, if it strikes a chord, if it rings true, it is true.