Continuing the discussion from Shots fired at White House Correspondents Dinner:
This thread is for political commentary that is outside Breaking News in MPSIMS. So long as your post pertains to this shooting, it’s fine for this thread.
Interesting that the NY Times barely broke a sweat over this story. It’s got top billing, but the typeset remains standard with only a smallish photo.
Gift link:
Trump is Rushed Out of Dinner Amid Reports of Shots Fired
From the article:
The president is back at the White House, and so is the press pool covering him tonight. Trump said he would be holding a news conference shortly. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is at the front doors of the West Wing in his tuxedo right now.
I won’t be watching that.
Also interesting that while CNN, Fox News and MSNOW are doing continuous coverage, the over the air networks aren’t even running trailers at the bottom of the screen. Maybe they’ll cut in when Trump speaks.
It’s almost like a big yawn, isn’t it?
This reminds me of Trump letting the Secret Service stop him from going to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
When it comes to physical courage, Trump always chickens out.
It is indeed reliably his response.
Whatever one thinks of Mike Pence, his refusal to leave the Capitol on January 6, when security insisted he go, is a useful point of comparison.
Watching the coverage on MSNOW. I just want to say that these are the best dressed reporters I’ve ever seen on a breaking story. I think the news reporters should always wear tuxedos and gowns.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was “a few feet away from (a gunman) as he was shooting,” he said on air.
“All the sudden a guy with a weapon, it was a very, very serious weapon, it starts shooting, and I happened to have been a few feet away from him as he was shooting,” Blitzer said.
And he didn’t even try to get an interview!
I hate that I’m cynically wondering how much of a bump there is going to be to Trump’s approval rating as a result of this.
I wonder how many outside the immediate group of cultists will believe that this wannabe Supreme Dictator had no choice but to do what the Secret Service demanded, versus being a craven coward and scared shitless.
I didn’t listen to the presser but I read some of the points thanks to @spoon’s transcript in the other thread. I don’t know why anyone bothers asking Trump questions – the man has such a tiny brain that his comments and responses to questions are as predictable as if coming from an 8-bit toy computer – reference to pet projects (“this is why we need a ballroom”), implication that he was targeted simply because he’s the greatest president in history, with a mandatory reference to Abraham Lincoln except that Trump is even greater, etc.
Also gotta love the quote from Kash Patel: “Very best of America tonight”. No, you blithering moron, the “best of America” would be a day – just one day – without gun violence.
I hate to harp on this but poor Stephanie Ruhle clearly got shoved into the anchor position. She started out in a gorgeous black halter dress with some seriously blingy earrings. Then it looks like one of the guys lent her his tuxedo jacket. The next time I saw her she had lost the earrings and somebody found her an actual blazer that fit. Now she’s ditched the blazer but still without the earrings although she has a great bracelet. Pirro’s gown isn’t too bad but I’m not sure who the reporter with the one shouldered pink gown with the enormous shoulder bow is. That’s giving eighties vibes.
More info on the perpetrator. He is 31, tech/computer/engineering guy with a degree from CalTech.
Especially since all of the reporters reporting are part of the story and that’s giving it a weird spin, to my mind. It makes it feel more … consequential maybe? But, yeah, it will probably help him.
No Wolf, “it” didn’t start shooting, guns are not in the class of things that can voluntary act.
Also, please Wolf, could you describe what a not serious weapon looks like?
Maybe… But there’s actually a not-insignificant segment of MAGA that is now questioning the legitimacy of the Butler assassination attempt. They’re calling the Butler shooting fake. This latest “incident,” which just feels totally staged, especially with a Trump presser ready to roll out 30 minutes after the evacuation, might not go over as well as the Trump people hope it will. I don’t think it’s gonna help him, and may open up even more suspicion.
I will so hope your prediction is the correct one.
Why in the world was the enemy of the 1st Amendment invited to it in the first place? They have no self-respect at all.
Why should anyone believe this was real?
A lifetime of training to believe that the only acceptable response to accusations of behaviors like staging assassinations is to denounce it as “just a conspiracy theory”. I guarantee that would be the response in any other Presidency.
It’s just not working this time because Trump is such a blatant and systematic fraud and lair.
It seems very unlikely to me that this gang of incompetents could stage something like this, at least not without it being discovered very quickly. OTOH, there’s something fishy about a graduate from the prestigious CalTech sacrificing his life and career for a harebrained stunt like this, unless he had a few screws loose to begin with which finally fell out.
No doubt the Orange One will be doing his best over the next while to get the most possible mileage out of this in terms of advancing his self-aggrandizement, with zero discussion of anything substantive like gun nuttery. It might be interesting to observe what real information emerges, and how Trumpists spin it. No doubt “the Crazy Radical Left” will be part of the spin.