What Nerve!
It did not take long after the horrific attempt by a deranged gunman to attack the White House Correspondence Dinner on April 25, 2026, for Donald Trump and his allies, including his Press Secretary and his wife, to blame the attack on the media and the Left’s factual denunciations of the words and acts of their Dear Leader and his White Nationalist cronies.
They have also used this as an Orwellian opportunity, in the name of National Security, to have, while people are paying higher gas prices, going hungry, and losing their health insurance thanks to Trump and MAGA Republicans’ Big Billionaires First Bill and war of choice against Iran, fund $400 million for the construction of the White House Ballroom.
Thought all the money for that project was supposed to come from private donations.
This is a game play they have used before, most recently after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, where MAGA Alternative Reality- White Nationalist-Fascist World blamed Democrats and late-night comedians like Jimmy Kimmel for pointing out all the actual vitriolic rhetoric and policy positions held by Kirk as the reason he was shot.
Again, what nerve.
These social media memes from the Other 98 Percent are a great reminder of some of the vile words and policy choices coming from Trump and his allies.
Below are two segments from MS NOW that remind people of Trump’s heinous words and acts, like calling the Press the Enemy of the People, indicting the Southern Poverty Law Center for exposing hate groups, and pardoning the January 6 Domestic Terrorists who stormed Congress in his name.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries gave an excellent response to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s disconnected and divorced-from-reality view that the media and Democrats were to blame for the Correspondence Dinner attacker, saying:
“I think that what’s interesting to me, as you pointed out, is that the so-called White House press secretary, who’s a disgrace. She’s a stone-cold liar. Had the nerve to stand up there and read talking points being critical of statements all taken out of context that Democrats have made, and didn’t have a word to say about anything that MAGA extremists have said or done, including providing aid and comfort to violent insurrectionists here at this capital on January Sixth, who brutally beat police officers.
The President then pardoned those violent rioters, many of whom have gone back into communities across the country to reoffend. And as you pointed out, one of whom threatened to kill me, he said, kill the terrorist. Where did that language come from? What Republicans use that language? Why did that pardon MAGA extremist violent insurrectionists choose to use the language of terrorism directed at me when he threatened to kill me at an event? And so how can we take them seriously when they raise these partisan attacks and completely ignore the fact that a lot of folks, including Governor Shapiro, his home was attacked by an arsonist when he and his kids and wife were there.
And this so called White House press secretary wants to lecture America and lecture us about civility. Get lost. Clean up your own house before you have anything to say to us about the language that we use.”
Donald Trump has not been…surprise surprise Presidential in his reaction to the attempted assassination attempt.
Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a person Trump called to be hanged for correctly pointing out that soldiers should not obey illegal orders, has posted what a President should say when something horrific like Saturday night is tried.
Earlier today (April 28,) Senator Kelly wrote:
“An attempt on the President’s life is an awful thing for our Democracy. I’m thankful Secret Service and law enforcement responded as quickly as they did before this gunman made it any closer to the President, many of his cabinet members, the press corps, and everyone else in that room.
Political violence is a growing problem in our country. It has led to violent acts against Americans and elected officials across the political spectrum. I refuse to accept that this is normal, or that we can’t do anything about it.
We have serious disagreements as a country. Some of those disagreements are passionate and personal. For 250 years, we have solved those differences at the ballot box. It’s a big part of what’s great and unique about our form of government.
That doesn’t mean we can’t be loud and clear when we think someone has a really bad idea, especially someone with power. That’s what a healthy democracy looks like. We all have the right to speak out about our government.
We also all have a moral and patriotic obligation to condemn political violence, no matter if the target is President Donald Trump, State Legislator Melissa Hortman in Minnesota, Charlie Kirk, or anyone else.
Here’s how we can turn this around. We talk to each other—in person, away from the social media algorithms that are designed to make us angry and divided. And that’s not just the job of elected officials. Frankly, Washington has a way of making this worse. These conversations start in our neighborhoods, in schools, and at the dinner table.
The other thing that has stayed with me is hearing the stories from journalists who were in the room, lying on the ground, texting their loved ones, and fearing for their lives, not yet knowing that the attacker had been stopped. That same experience isn’t unfamiliar to a whole generation of Americans. Far too often, kids are the ones sending those texts to their parents as they hide on the ground in their classrooms during lockdowns because of report of an active shooter, or in the worst instances, a gunman down the hall from or in their classroom. I’ve talked to parents who lost their children to gun violence and will never fully recover, and to kids who are traumatized from losing their friends or witnessing something in a school hallway that I might have seen in war. I know something about that phone call that changes everything. I’ll never forget when my wife, Gabby’s, chief of staff called me on January 8th, 2011, to say Gabby had been shot in the head. That act of violence flipped our world upside down.
A week ago, it was family members in Shreveport, Louisiana whose worlds were flipped upside down when eight children were murdered and two others were injured in a shocking act of domestic violence. This was the deadliest mass shooting since January 2024.
Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children and teens in America. The lax firearms laws that allow criminals, domestic abusers, and the dangerously mentally ill to get access to guns makes all of us less safe. It’s just wrong.
I refuse to accept that this should be normal in America and can’t be changed. Since Gabby was shot, I’ve already seen change start to happen. We know the steps we can take to strengthen gun laws while protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. If we do that, and we reject the forces that are trying to divide us, everyone, from the president to our kids, will be safer.
These are challenging times, but we’re up for the challenge if we all work on it together.”
That is how a President should speak.
Mr. Trump and his people could learn something from this post.
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