No, you are bang on. He’s being treated like a total embarrassment. Nobody is supporting him. If he thought this was going to get him any sympathy he was sadly mistaken.
Those tears are Shakespearean and frightening if real. I also think he’s putting on a performance, one almost hopes it to be an act. True angst like that would get somebody locked up and involuntarily medicated for their own safety. If I hear that this man ‘wishes to meet’ with John Boehner for a public lunch, I will know then.