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Some of these are unbelievable
In the wake of horrific tragedies in Dayton and El Paso over the weekend, the last few days have been marked by some exaggerated, unfair, untrue, and insensitive reactions. Here are five of the most outrageous responses.
For a while, probably since the Charlottesville protests and President Donald Trump's infamous "both sides" remark, the narrative has been that the president will not explicitly condemn white nationalism or white supremacy.
Monday, in his speech about the mass murders in Dayton and El Paso, the president explicitly condemned white supremacy and white nationalism. So, the goalposts quickly moved to make sure that wasn't good enough.
This headline right here is a huge problem. News coverage has now become about what the media wanted and Trump didn't give them as opposed to what he said. pic.twitter.com/DSkz1bIcrO
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) August 5, 2019
Chyron. pic.twitter.com/d6CAVpe2un
— Cortney O'Brien (@obrienc2) August 5, 2019
Ana Navarro 10 hours ago: "Trump cannot speak against: white supremacist domestic terrorism."
***Trump speaks out against white supremacist domestic terrorism***
Ana Navarro now: "I don't give a damn what Trump says"
You literally cannot make this up. pic.twitter.com/Ic2vkM9kiu
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) August 5, 2019
Presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a military veteran, says when he uses a gun, it's a tool. But for some reason, when you're in the NRA, your gun becomes an idol.
"Here is something to think about this Sunday morning," Buttigieg said. "Is a gun a tool or an idol? Any time I've carried or handled a weapon, whether in Afghanistan for self-defense or whether it was to go skeet shooting or hunting, I viewed it as a tool. But if the gun corporation lobby, which is what the NRA is, now has people viewing guns as a thing to be loved, a thing to be protected, a thing that is a source of our freedom and power and a thing to which we are willing to sacrifice human life, isn't that the definition of a false God?"
Presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, who is from El Paso, blew up on a reporter who asked him if President Trump could do anything to improve the situation.
"What do you think? You know the s*** he's been saying. He's been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals," O'Rourke said. I don't know, like, members of the press, what the f***?"
Much of the media coverage Monday focused on the El Paso gunman's apparent hatred for and targeting of Mexican immigrants. That angle was used to put responsibility on President Donald Trump for the tragedy.
Much less time, if any, was devoted to the fact that the Dayton killer was a self-described leftist who supported Elizabeth Warren and said he wanted socialism, according to reviews of his social media posts.
CNN's Chris Cuomo will host a town hall entitled "AMERICA UNDER ASSAULT: The Gun Crisis" on Wednesday night. If you remember the last time they did this, after the mass murder in Parkland, Florida, it wasn't exactly a fair and productive event.