'Trump's partisan double standard for assassinations is chilling'
(MSNBC) "The two killings in question — a lone wolf assassination of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman in June and the shooting of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk at a Utah Valley University speaking event this past week — elicited very different kinds of treatment from the White House. President Donald Trump gave scant attention to Hortman’s killing, while he framed the killing of Kirk as a cataclysmic national tragedy and a political rallying cry for the right."
"In response to the murder of Hortman, Trump offered a brief, impersonal condemnation of her killing on Truth Social, stating that 'such horrific violence will not be tolerated.' He didn’t do much else. He did not offer a substantial eulogy for her, or deliver an address on political violence, as he did after Kirk’s death. Unlike former President Joe Biden, Trump did not attend the funeral. The day after Hortman’s killing, when Trump was asked if he had called Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, he said, 'I could be nice and call, but why waste time?' Trump suggested that part of the reason he didn’t want to call Walz was because he thought Walz was to blame for the killing, or at least the events leading up to it. That claim was nonsense. But peddling that narrative did allow Trump to divert attention from the fact that authorities found the suspected shooter had a hit list that named mostly Democratic politicians or figures tied to abortion rights, and that his close childhood friend said he voted for Trump."
"In response to Kirk’s killing, Trump responded with tremendous urgency. He immediately issued an order to lower American flags to half-staff at the White House, all public buildings, U.S. embassies and military posts. He announced he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously. He delivered a wrathful four-minute video address from the White House condemning Kirk’s assassination and promising vengeance against the left. As my colleague Anthony Fisher notes, during that address he made 'wildly irresponsible assumptions about the then-unknown suspected killer’s motives. He completely ignored right-wing violence (like the kind he incited in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021), and he explicitly threatened to bring down the force of government on his political opponents.' "
Continued at link:
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-response-charlie-kirk-melissa-hortman-shootings-rcna230825
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