President Donald Trump said Friday that the quintuple murder at a Maryland newspaper’s office a day earlier was ‘horrific’ and pledged ‘eternal support’ for families of the victims.
‘I’d like to address the horrific shooting that took place yesterday at [the] Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland,’ Trump said at an event to mark the passage of six months since his December tax cuts became law.
‘This attack shocked the conscience of our nation and filled our hearts with grief,’ he said. ‘Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job.’
The president has set a new standard for the usually adversarial relationship with political journalists, accusing outlets of publishing ‘fake news’ when he doesn’t like their coverage.
Weeks after assuming the presidency, Trump branded the political news media ‘the enemy of the American people.’
The newspaper still put out a print edition on Friday. They tweeted out an image (above) of their front page late on Thursday night regarding the deaths of their five colleagues
And his former senior strategist Steve Bannon famously said the press, not the Democrats, were the White House’s ‘opposition party.’
Trump’s political rallies invariably include a public verbal spanking of the reporters who travel to cover the events.
His crowds boo, jeer, curse, and often chant ‘Fake News!’ and ‘CNN Sucks!’
On Friday the president looked past that, appearing to hope his critics would shelf the idea – in this case an erroneous one – that he was responsible for bloodshed in a newsroom.
‘To the families of the victims, there are no words to express our sorrow for your loss. Horrible, horrible event. Horrible thing happened. When you’re suffering, we pledge our eternal support. This suffering is so great. I’ve seen some of the people. So great.’
‘My government,’ Trump promised, ‘will not rest until we have done everything in our power to reduce violent crime and to protect innocent life. We will not ever leave your side. So our warmest, best wishes and regrets. Horrific, horrible thing.’
Trump was briefed in Wisconsin about Thursday’s mass-casualty shooting shortly after it happened, and posted a brief condolence message on Twitter, just after telling an aide to criticize The Wall Street Journal as a purveyor of ‘fake news.’
‘My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. Thank you to all of the First Responders who are currently on the scene,’ he said in that tweet.
A gunman opened fire at the newspaper near the Maryland state capitol, killing five people with a shotgun.
Trump has promised before that he would work overtime to reduce violent crime in America, but has at the same time resisted calls from gun control advocates for new laws restricting who can own firearms.
There have been four other high-profile mass shootings during his presidency.
Trump offered thoughts and prayers to the journalists and their families at around the same time his spokeswoman Lindsay Walters was telling reporters that a morning Wall Street Journal story was ‘fake news’
Last October a gunman sprayed bullets on a music festival crowd outside a Las Vegas hotel, killing 58 before taking his own life. Another 26 were killed five weeks later by a killer who opened fire inside a rural Texas church.
In February a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida killed 17 – nearly all of them teenagers. Police had received around two dozen tips about the killer, including one warning fom the public that he had threatened to shoot up a school.
Last month at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, a 17-year-old shooter killed eight students and two teachers.
Reporters on Air Force One asked Trump spokeswoman Lindsay Walters on Thursday whether a motive for the murders might be related to the president’s broad and persistent criticism of the press.
That turned out to be an unfounded concern. The shooter, 38-year-old Jerrod Ramos, held a personal grudge against the Capital Gazette over a story the paper published about him years ago.
Walters responded that the White House does not believe violence is acceptable in any situation, ‘and we stand by that.