Donald Trump, Jr. lashed out at public school teachers as he ranted in defense of guns following Tuesday’s school shooting massacre in Uvalde, Texas.
“It’s the gun, it’s not the sociopath wielding it, folks,” he said in a video posted to Rumble. “If it wasn’t for the gun, this kid would be a well-adjusted, reasonable individual, he’d be a wonderful human being, right?”
“He wouldn’t have done the exact same thing with a bat or a bomb or some sort of improvised device or a machete, he’s a great kid, don’t judge him,” he said.
The 18-year-old suspect, who allegedly murdered 19 children and 2 teachers, reportedly was armed with a Daniel Defense AR-15 rifle and 1,6000 rounds of ammunition.
“We can’t acknowledge what the actual causes are, it’s not a drug-addict mother and a missing father and a lack of religion, indoctrination programs in our schools, crazy teachers teaching some of the crap I’ve talking about in these videos. It’s none of those things,” he said. “It never ends man.”
“Our own stupidity, apathy, wokeness, laziness, that’s the problem, folks, and until we fix that, the rest is just talk and crap,” he said.
Trump, Jr. said, “no one can admit somebody is actually a piece of garbage and screwed up.”
Anger over the National Rifle Association blocking gun safety legislation following yet another fatal mass shooting boiled over at TEDxPortland event.
“Organizers of the lecture and music event TEDxPortland angered some audience members by giving independent candidate for governor Betsy Johnson, who in the past earned an A rating from the National Rifle Association, an unannounced spot in its event lineup Saturday,” The Oregonianreported. “The group also appeared to have run afoul of IRS rules that prohibit tax-exempt non-profits from giving any political candidate preferential treatment.”
The newspaper noted Johnson could potentially have some wiggle-room as the has not yet officially qualified for the ballot by collecting signatures but noted it is “something no one doubts an established officeholder with her financial backing will accomplish.”
“Johnson, who voted against gun safety bills as a Democrat in the Oregon Senate and mentioned being a gun owner during her TEDxPortland talk at the Moda Center Saturday afternoon, drew jeers, boos and shouted demands for gun control during her time on stage,” the newspaper noted.
David Rae, the nonprofit’s president, was interviewed by The Oregonian.
The newspaper reported, “By inviting the career politician with nearly $9 million in backing from Oregon powerbrokers including Nike co-founder Phil Knight and a host of timber millionaires, he said, ‘We are just trying to offer an intimate conversation in front of 7,000 people with a courageous woman, right?’ In the days since a shooter used an assault weapon to brutally kill 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school, much of the national conversation has revolved around gun safety legislation, which made the timing of Johnson’s appearance at the non-political event particularly fraught.”
Tina Kotek is the Democratic Party nominee for governor and Christine Drazan is the GOP standard bearer.
KGW reporter Evan Watson posted photos and video from the event on social media:
u201cTEDxPortland: In a surprise and unannounced decision, #TEDxPDX brings non-affiliated Oregon Governor candidate Betsy Johnson on stage for an interviewnnAfter a few questions, audience members shout for her to address gun control, pushing her on her past record #Audac10us @KGWNewsu201d
u201cPART 2: Johnson mentioned being a gun owner and representing gun owners in her district before turning the answer to thoughts on the mental health crisis, which sparked some cheers but also more frustration for some #TEDxPDX @KGWNews #Audac10usu201d
u201cPART 4: The #TEDxPDX host says theyu2019re not going to solve gun control in 4 minutes, adding this is u201cnot a debate, this is not @KGWNews.u201dnnStill, a tense crowd at the Moda Center. Johnson was not listed on the speaker agenda or in the program for todayu2019s schedule.u201d
u201cFor context, hereu2019s our latest @KGWNews report on the Oregon Governor candidates and where they stand on gun control.nnJohnson said today that the type of gun u201cdoesnu2019t dictate its lethality.u201d The NRA gave her an A rating in 2018. nhttps://t.co/wZ2WEj1IKuu201d
Security guards at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Houston blocked a small group of Proud Boys extremists from entering the security perimeter Saturday at the George R. Brown Convention Center, the Washington Times reported.
“The security agents told The Washington Times that NRA officials directed them not to allow Proud Boys through the gate,” the newspaper reported. “The group walked away in their signature yellow and black clothing toward the gun control protesters on the other side of the street and Houston Police established a hard barrier dividing them. The NRA did not return a request for comment.”
Houston TV station KHOU-11 reported that law enforcement broke up multiple arguments between the Proud Boys and gun-control protesters who were across the street from the convention at Discovery Green. Fencing had been erected to keep the two sides apart, the Houston Chronicle reported.
On Twitter, freelance journalist Steven Monacelli posted video of a brief confrontation in which he said showed the Proud Boys using homophobic slurs to provoke the protesters.
u201cTo reiterate: the Proud Boys are a fascistic street gang known for their interest in provoking violence against their perceived political opponents.u201d
u201cWhen I asked Proud Boys members whether they participated in the attack on the Capitol, they refused to engage. One then shouted that he blamed the political establishment for the death of Ashli Babbitt.u201d
Donald Trump was startled by the appearance of his hair while speaking at a campaign rally in Casper, Wyoming on Saturday.
Trump was speaking at the Ford Wyoming Center, which he did not fill, in support of Republican congressional hopeful Harriet Hageman, who is challenging Rep. Liz Cheney for the state’s lone congressional seat.
In his speech, Trump complained about the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, offered lots of red meat for his MAGA base, and offered his take on the 2022 midterms.
As he was ranting about transgender Americans and schools, the former president abruptly interrupted his speech to discuss his hair.
“Excuse me, these massive screens that we paid a fortune for, I’m just looking at the back of my head. Is it getting a little thin?” he asked the crowd.
During the 2016 campaign, Monica Hesse wrote “the 100 greatest descriptions of Donald Trump’s hair ever written for The Washington Post.
“It appears to be a comb-over, but, incredibly, it doesn’t arrive from any direction. You cannot stare at The Donald’s hair very long. It’s like staring into the sun,” was one entry.
“The male equivalent of a push-up bra,” was another.
Another said Trump’s hair “resembles the behavior of alpha chimps who, as primatologist Frans de Waal reports in ‘Chimpanzee Politics,’ make their hair stand on end in order to look large.”
Donald Trump complained about the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol as he campaigned against the body’s vice chair, GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
Trump held a Sat. rally at the Ford Wyoming Center in Casper, an arena he failed to fill.
“She’s aided and abetted the radical Democrat (sic) Party in one of the most unhinged, lawless, and dangerous witch hunts of all time, the unselect committee on Jan. 6,” Trump said.
“But as one of nation’s leading proponents of the insurrection hoax, Liz Cheney has pushed a grotesquely false, fabricated, and hysterical, partisan narrative and that was the narrative of day, which has become the pretext for the most chilling assault on your civil liberties in generations. Look what they’re doing to these people, look what they’re doing to these people,” he said, apparently referring to those charged for the Jan. 6 attack.
He went on a friend described him as “the most honest man in the history of our country.”
“And now you look the so-called word insurrection, Jan. 6, what a lot of crap. What a lot of crap. And most of this country knows it, and you know who else knows it? The Democrats. It’s another con job just like Russia, Russia, Russia. This was made up by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, a total fake story,” he said.
“She really represents despicable things. With Liz Cheney’s support, the unselect committee has turned the United States House of Representatives into an instrument of political torment and repression,” Trump claimed. “You know that, you see that every night.”
Less than one week after Donald Trump’s grudgefest in Georgia was rejected by Republican voters, the former president traveled to Casper, Wyoming as he seeks to oust Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) for objecting to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The rally was attended by Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Kat Cammack (R-FL), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
Bryan Schott, a reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune, posted a picture from the arena 30 minutes before the program was scheduled to begin.
u201cWe are about 30 minutes from showtime at the Trump rally in Casper and there are A LOT of empty seats in the arena.nnThereu2019s still a line outside, but Iu2019m not sure how many people are waiting to get in #utpolu201d
— Bryan “Springsteen Tour 2023” Schott (@Bryan “Springsteen Tour 2023” Schott) 1653763160
Olivia Nuzzi, Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, posted multiple photos showing empty seats after Trump’s was to have taken the stage.
u201cDonald Trump was due onstage in Casper, Wyoming ten minutes ago. Arena is still not at capacity.u201d
Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party is being increasing challenged by GOP rivals who have less fear of the former president’s rage following Georgia’s primary election results.
Former Gov. Chris Christie has emerged as a leading critic of Trump’s fixation on his delusions about the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Joe Biden.
“We have to be the party of tomorrow, not the party of yesterday,” Christie told Politico. “But more important than that, what we have to decide is: do we want to be the party of me or the party of us? What Donald Trump has advocated is for us to be the ‘party of me,’ that everything has to be about him and about his grievances.’”
During an appearance on Guy Benson’s Fox Radio show, Christie again offered his analysis of the former president.
“The mainstream media will overinterpret this as being the end of Donald Trump in the Republican Party, and it is far from it. But what it shows you is if he continues to look backwards, guy, he is not going to be a political force in this party for much longer,” he predicted.
Christie also had harsh words for Trump when speaking to students at Harvard University.
“You cannot stand behind the seal of the president of the United States, in the East Room of the White House, and tell the American people that the election is stolen and not present them with any evidence that it’s been stolen,” Christie said. “Because people believe the president, a lot of people do, and they think to themselves, ‘Well, he wouldn’t say that unless he knew something.’ He knows nothing!”
But others in the party are still standing by Trump.
At a rally in Wyoming for Harriet Hageman, who is challenging Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), Mike Lindell claimed that Donald Trump did not lose in Georgia because he claims Gov. Brian Kemp was not the real winner of the primary.
Lindell went on to claim that there was also fraud in Wyoming and that Trump did not win by 120,000 votes.
u201cMike Lindell has arrived at the Trump rally, saying that the Deep State u201cdialed up the algorithmsu201d to steal the GOP primaries of Kemp and Raffensperger to embarrass Trump. u201cYou think Brian Kemp got 73%? Impossible! They stole that election!u201du201d
— Ron Filipkowski ud83cuddfaud83cudde6 (@Ron Filipkowski ud83cuddfaud83cudde6) 1653757049
GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado traveled to Wyoming on Saturday to try and fire fellow Republican Rep. Liz Cheney.
Boebert is campaigning for Harriet Hageman, who is challenging Cheney in the GOP primary for the state’s at-large seat in Congress.
“I want to tell you a story about his generosity,” she said, referring to Trump, who is the top topic in the race.
“About how kind he is, about how welcoming he is. The thing that these folks right here in the back never let anyone see,” she said, pointing to the press. “Fake media is the virus.”
“My family and I were with President Trump, and even not like germs, Trump shared a bowl of popcorn with my 14-year-old son. Now listen Wyoming, I know where he’s been, I don’t share food with my son,” the mother of four said.
Other Republicans who traveled to Wyoming for the rally include Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Kat Cammack (R-FL).
u201cBoebert: I want to tell you a story about his generosity, about how kind he isu2026 Even not liking germs, President Trump shared a bowl of popcorn with my sonu2026 I donu2019t share food with my son.u201d
The Texas Senate Democratic Caucus is urging Gov. Greg Abbott to call an emergency special legislative session to consider a variety of gun restrictions and safety measures in the wake of a mass school shooting in Uvalde that left 19 children and two adults dead this week.
In a letter released Saturday morning, all 13 Senate Democrats demanded lawmakers pass legislation that raises the minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21 years old. The Uvalde gunman was 18 and had purchased two AR-style rifles which he used in the attack.
The caucus is also calling for universal background checks for all firearm sales, “red flag” laws that allow a judge to temporarily remove firearms from people who are considered an imminent threat to themselves or others, a “cooling off period” for the purchase of a firearm and regulations on high capacity magazines for citizens.
“Texas has suffered more mass shootings over the past decade than any other state. In Sutherland Springs, 26 people died. At Santa Fe High School outside Houston, 10 people died. In El Paso, 23 people died at a Walmart. Seven people died in Midland-Odessa,” the letter reads. “After each of these mass killings, you have held press conferences and roundtables promising things would change. After the slaughter of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, those broken promises have never rung more hollow. The time to take real action is now.”
Such laws are unlikely to gain traction in the Republican-controlled Legislature, which has a track record of favoring legislation that loosens gun restrictions. Only the governor has the power to call lawmakers back into a special session for emergency work.
Asked about a special session at a Friday press conference in Uvalde, Abbott said “all options are on the table” adding that he believed laws would ultimately be passed to address this week’s horrors. However, he suggested laws would be more tailored toward addressing mental health, rather than gun control.
“You can expect robust discussion and my hope is laws are passed, that I will sign, addressing health care in this state,” he said, “That status quo is unacceptable. This crime is unacceptable. We’re not going to be here and do nothing about it.”
He resisted the idea of increasing the age to purchase a firearm, saying that since Texas became a state, 18-year-olds have been able to buy a gun.
He also dismissed universal background checks saying existing background check policies did not prevent the Santa Fe and Sutherland Springs shootings, which both happened while he has been in office.
“If everyone wants to seize upon a particular strategy and say that’s the golden strategy right there, look at what happened in the Santa Fe shooting,” he said. “A background check had no relevance because the shooter took the gun from his parents…Anyone who suggests we should focus on background checks as opposed to mental health, I suggest is mistaken.”
But in the letter, Senate Democrats criticized the governor for blaming a “broken mental health care system – that you and other state leaders continue to underfund severely.”
“We need evidence-based, common sense gun safety laws. Without a doubt, if at least some of the measures noted above had been passed since 2018, then many lives could have been saved,” the caucus wrote.
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the letter.
After the Santa Fe school shooting in 2018, Abbott released a variety of recommendations to address school safety, including a call to the Legislature to consider a “red flag” law.
At the time, Abbott claimed in his plan to improve school safety that similar protective orders restricting gun possession could have prevented the mass shootings in Sutherland Springs, southeast of San Antonio, and Parkland, Florida.
By the end of the 2019 legislative session Abbott signed a package of school safety measures that primarily focused on expanding mental health resources and “hardening school buildings.” He expanded the number of school staff who could have a firearm on school grounds.
When he signed that legislation at the end of the 2019 session, reporters asked if he still supported a “red flag” law.
Abbott said such a measure wasn’t necessary in Texas “right now.”
On Friday, Roland Gutierrez, the Democratic state senator who represents Uvalde, interrupted Abbott’s press conference by walking to the front of the auditorium and urged the governor to bring lawmakers back for three weeks.
“We have to do something, man,” he said to Abbott, the second Democratic politician to interrupt a press conference this week. “Just call us back.”
In the hours after the shooting on Tuesday, Gutierrez told the Texas Tribune that the state needed to make it more difficult to obtain a firearm, especially the gun used by the shooter, an AR-15, which he called a “weapon of mass destruction.”
“There’s not a hunter in Texas that utilizes these kinds of weapons,” he said. “And so I’m not saying let’s take those kinds of weapons away, I’m saying that we should have some greater accessibility restrictions …When you’ve got an 18-year-old kid getting his hands on this kind of weaponry, it just makes no sense to me.”
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Nation Rifle Association members overwhelmingly supported the gun rights group’s longtime leader Wayne LaPierre with a vote of confidence on Saturday, even as the lobby struggles with allegations of misspending millions of dollars.
The group is holding its annual meeting in Houston, about 280 miles (450 km) east of the site of a school shooting on Tuesday, when an 18-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle killed 19 school children and two teachers at a Texas school.
(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
