Donald Trump stopped on his way to give a speech at a Future Farmers of America meeting to tell victims and families of the Pittsburgh shooting that the whole thing was their fault. According to Trump, they should have hard “armed guards” present at the morning bris. Which would have made “results far better.”
After a confusing opening in which Trump kept insisting that the shooting was “far worse” than people had thought in the morning — though immediate reports from the scene indicated multiple deaths and injuries moments after the shooting began — Trump was asked if changes to gun laws might have helped prevent the shooting. But he found something else to blame.
Trump: [Gun laws] had little to do with it. If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better. This is a dispute that will always exist, I suspect. But if they had some kind of a protection inside the temple, ahhh, maybe it could have been a very much different situation. They didn't. And he was able to do things that unfortunately he shouldn't have been able to do.
By “a dispute that will always exist” Trump apparently means whether Jewish people have the right to exist without being shot.
The suggestion that gun regulation “had little to do with it” where it was a man marching into a synagogue with the same kind of rapid-fire semi-automatic assault rifle used in many other mass killings and opening fire indiscriminately at congregants on two floors of the building. And that the people inside were to blame for failing to protect themselves clearly stunned reporters, who gave Trump multiple opportunities to provide something more sane in response.
Reporter: Is there anything we can do to end this kind of violence?
Trump: Well, it's a ... it's a violence. You look at the violence all over the world. The world has violence. The world is a violent world. And you think that when you're over it, but then it comes back in the form of a mad man. A whacko.
This might seem like the point where Trump would pause to comfort the families of the victims. It wasn’t. That point never came. Instead, Trump continued to hammer the idea that the only option is to have armed guards, everywhere, all the time. And to kill more people, more quickly.
Trump: I think one thing we should do is we should stiffen up our laws in terms of the death penalty.
The discussion of the death penalty was the one point in the questions were Trump really lit up. He spoke quickly. He smiled. This was definitely what he most wanted to talk about.
Trump: When people do this, they should get the death penalty and they shouldn't have to wait years and years. Now the lawyers will get involved. And everybody's going to get involved. And we'll be ten years down the line ... And I think we should stiffen up laws and I think we should very much bring the death penalty into vogue.
Anybody that does a thing like this to innocent people that are in temple or in church ... We had the ... So many incidents with churches ... Uh ... They should be ... They should really suffer the ultimate price .. They should suffer the ultimate price. I've felt that way for a long time. Some people disagree with me. I can’t imagine why.
The reporters, faced from Trump’s pivot from an utter disdain for human life to … more utter disdain from human life, made another attempt to get some reasonable response.
Reporter: Toward the beginning of your presidency you met with the NRA. You said maybe you were the president who could help solve this. Do you see that now as a possibility?
Trump: It's a case where ... and again nobody knows what took place here. It's too soon, But it's a case where if they had an armed guard inside, they might have been able to stop him immediately. So this would be a case for ... if there was an armed guard inside the temple, they would have been able to stop him. Maybe there would have been nobody killed. Except for him, frankly. So it's a very, very difficult situation. And when you look at it, You can look at it two ways.
Two ways … though if there’s a way that isn’t armed guards everywhere, and more people summarily executed, Trump didn’t give any details.
Trump: But again, if they had somebody to protect people ... Now, isn't it a shame that you even have to speak that way, isn't it a shame that we even have to think of that inside of a temple or inside of a church, but ... certainly the results might have been far better.
By this point, “aghast” barely described the faces of the people looking at Trump. They tried again, holding out some glimmer of hope that the ugliness of his response might slip through.
Reporter: You think that all churches and synagogues should have armed guards?
Trump: I hate to think of it that way. I'll say that. I hate to think of it that way. So ... we'll see you at the Future Farmers …
Reporter: But is that what you're suggesting?
Trump: It's certainly an option. This world ... This is a world with a lot of problems. And it has been a world with a lot of problems for many years, many many years. And you could say, frankly, for many centuries. I mean, you look at what goes on. But ... certainly you want protection. And they didn't have any protection.
And in case anyone had missed the idea that it was the fault of the victims for not having an armed protector on hand, Trump ground that heel one more time into the open wound.
Trump: They had a maniac walk in, and they didn't have any protection. And that is just so sad to see, so sad to see. The results could have been much better. It's a very difficult thing. For me to stand as president and watch any of this go ... You know, before I ran for office then i would watch instances like this with churches, and other things, I'd say "What a shame. What a shame." But it's even tougher when you're the President of the United States and you have to watch this kind of a thing happen. It is so sad to see. So ... we'll see you at the ... with the young farmers. There are a lot of them.
That was Trump’s closing statement. That this is hard … on Trump. He never reached out to the victims, or the families, and his only advice was … get a gun.
Ladies and gentlemen, the comforter in chief.
