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Obviously Donald Trump is taking the largest mass shooting in American history as an opportunity to try to make the United States into a more hateful, violent place. OBVIOUSLY. As families were still waiting to hear if their loved ones had survived and the nation was trying to absorb the magnitude of the attack on Orlando’s LGBT community, Trump patted himself on the back, then tried to pretend he was doing something other than patting himself on the back, all in the space of one tweet:
That monstrosity quickly became notorious, prompting even the fine journalists of Fox & Friends to ask him about it. Trump insisted that “I’m not” being self-congratulatory. “No, no, no.” It’s just that “I’m getting thousands of letters and tweets that I was right about the whole situation.” (I’m not congratulating myself, but boy are other people congratulating me. In thousands of “letters” that arrived between Sunday morning and Monday morning.) Also, too, “they’re going to start a whole terrorism division, and it’s because of me. They thought it was obsolete. It’s exactly what I said. I’ve been right about a lot of things.” Me me me I me I. This is all about Donald Trump.
No word, though, on how Trump’s Muslim ban would have prevented an American-born Florida resident from killing people in Florida.
This is the same Fox & Friends interview in which Trump suggested President Obama is a terrorist sympathizer. Trump has other thoughts about Obama, and Hillary Clinton as well:
In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam'. For that reason alone, he should step down. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the Presidency.
Say the exact words Donald Trump personally chooses to emphasize or that’s it, you’re done. Words Trump doesn’t choose to emphasize, of course, include “gun laws” and “homophobia.” That would be crazy talk, I guess.
On policy, Trump is a fairly basic Republican. But on rhetoric, he shows exactly why Hillary Clinton (among many others) has called him temperamentally unfit to be president: a horrific mass shooting becomes a chance for Trump to pat himself on the back and bluster some more. He can’t even pretend to pause and reflect and respect the lives lost.