The more we find out about Donald Trump's weird trip to "console" shooting victims in Dayton and El Paso -- by telling them what a big winner he is -- the more bizarre the story gets. We already knew Trump had made freakish campaign videos of himself in both cities, and now we're finding out more about what a schmuck he was in El Paso.
One detail that has perhaps been under-reported in all the craziness is that Trump was seriously disappointed that the shooter in El Paso was such a wuss, letting himself get captured like that. Buzzfeed News reported Wednesday that while speaking to first responders and police, Trump suggested the shooter lacked gumption:
"Coward," Trump said. "He gave up, just gave up."
This only makes sense! If you're going to do a mass shooting of people you consider invaders that will replace white people, you want to fight to the last bullet and take down as many of them as you can before your glorious martyrdom.
The Guardian ran a story that initially said -- without identifying a source -- that Trump had called the gunman a "pussy" too, although within the last hour the paper posted a sort of correction. Well that's one hell of an error, guys! It probably deserves more of a correction than just "This article was amended on Friday 9 August to remove a quote mistakenly attributed to Donald Trump." Be best, you. Trump's plenty awful enough in the real world, you know, even if he didn't offer editing tips on punching up the shooter's racist "manifesto." Four pages? Why so long? Boring!
We've also learned that Trump bragged to doctors and staff at the medical center about what a huge crowd he drew during his February campaign rally in El Paso, and what a pathetic little crowd turned out to see Beto O'Rourke. Here's video of Trump praising the staff (he forgets the name of "the doctor" showing him around), then calling O'Rourke "crazy" and and lying about the turnout for the rally opposing Trump.
This is viewer video of President @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS at @umcelpaso meeting with victims and medical staf… https://t.co/Ex3u6T1o4u— CBS4Local (@CBS4Local) 1565235146.0
Trump claimed the counter-protest only drew "400 people in a parking lot." Police estimated it was between 10 to 15,000 people, which is a bit more than 400, but holy shit, here we are playing into his stupid dick-measuring while he's at a hospital. Fair enough: He's the biggest dick, for sure.
Still, it was all very comforting and presidential! A hospital official told CNN
that there was a general assessment that there was "an absence of empathy" on Trump's part. When asked whether that was a fair assessment, the official said that was "accurate."
Gosh, that doesn't sound like the outgoing narcissist we know and love!
We already knew that none of the eight victims still recovering at University Medical Center of El Paso met with the Trumps -- some were too badly injured, some speak only the Español, and others just said nah -- to the . But we learned more about one of the two survivors rounded up and brought back to the damn hospital so they could be in Trump's photo op. Not that it was a photo op, because White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham made it clear the hospital visits were "about the victims and their families, and thanking medical staff" and definitely not "about a photo-op for the President and the First Lady."
Which is why the White House Flickr photo page is full of stage-managed pics of Don & Melon, Including several photos of the Trumps posing with little Paul Anchondo, the two-month-old who survived the shooting because his parents, Andre and Jordan Anchondo, died shielding him with their bodies. The couple, who were celebrating their first wedding anniversary, also had a six-year old daughter.
The White House photographer was careful to get a close-up of the little baby's injured hand, even, along with another photo of Melon looking at the injured baby with great concern.
The second one is legit a very good photo, sure, because Melania is capable of looking like she does empathy, at least when not wearing her "I really don't care do U" raincoat.
As of blogtime, some of the families in the photos had yet to be named, because they're background characters in a Trump campaign operation, though maybe the pics will be updated later?
It's worth noting that despite some Twitter accounts of the discharged survivors being "forced" to return for the photo op that wasn't a photo op, Tito Anchondo, the older brother of Andre, said in an interview with NPR that both he and his late brother supported Trump. Tito said he understood why many El Pasoans believe Trump shouldn't have come to the city at all, although he was more forgiving: "And yes, maybe he said things in bad taste. But I think people are misconstruing President Trump's ideas."
He also said in that interview, aired before Trump came to the city, that he hoped to have a private meeting with the "president":
"I want to see his reaction in person," he said. "I want to see if he's genuine and see if my political views are right or wrong. And see if he feels maybe some kind of remorse for statements that he's made. I just want to have a human-to-human talk with him and see how he feels."
We're betting the photo op is all he got. Probably just as well, since Trump might only have told him how his brother and sister-in-law died so that other Americans could learn how much everyone loves Trump.
[Guardian / Buzzfeed News / CNN / Salon / NPR]
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