Trump Blames the Media for White Supremacist Mass Shootings

By Jack Crosbie  |  August 5, 2019 | 1:03pm
White House

Donald Trump’s response to the horrific mass shootings in El Paso, TX, and Dayton, OH, had already been callous and utterly vapid, but on Monday morning, with a day of space to respond to the tragedies, he landed on an even worse message: actually, it’s the media’s fault.

As NBC News’ Benjy Sarlin pointed out, the president’s framing of the issue is exactly in line with the El Paso shooter’s manifesto:

On the actual policy side of things, Trump also responded this morning by sowing the seeds for poison-pill legislation in any future gun control bills.

“Perhaps marrying this legislation with desperately needed immigration reform” is an outright attempt to sabotage gun bills in bad faith before they even approach Congress, which, would you believe it, has already happened to the one major gun bill the House has passed this year. House Republicans managed to slip a provision into HR8, the universal background checks bill, that requires gun sellers to notify ICE if a prospective buyer’s immigration status causes them to fail a background check.

 
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