Trump Questions Why Obama Wasn’t Blamed for Charleston Church Shooting – By Chantal Da Silva (newsweek.com) / Oct 30 2018
President Donald Trump has expressed outrage over the fact that his name has been brought up in the U.S. media’s reporting of the arrest of Cesar Sayoc, a Trump supporter suspected of mailing out pipe bombs to prominent detractors of the U.S. leader.
“I was in the headline of The Washington Post, my name associated with this crazy bomber,” Trump said in a Monday interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.
While the Post’s initial reporting on Sayoc’s arrest carried the headline “Man in Florida Arrested, Charged in Connection With Mail Bombs Sent to Public Figures,” Trump asserted that he was “in the headline when they got him.”
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before departing for a rally in Murphysboro, Illinois, on October 27. The U.S. leader expressed outrage over the fact that his name had been included in reports on a series of pipe bombs mailed out to prominent Trump detractors. NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty
“They didn’t say ‘bomber found,’ they talked about Trump in the headline,” the U.S. leader said.
The president then questioned why Democratic leaders, including former President Barack Obama and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders had not been blamed for major shootings that rocked the U.S., including the 2017 shooting of Republican Congressman Steve Scalise, who was shot while practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game for Charity by left-wing activist and Sanders supporter James Hodgkinson, and the 2015 shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, carried out by white supremacist Dylann Roof.
“Bernie Sanders had a fan who shot a very good friend of ours, Steve Scalise, and other people. He was a total maniac,” Trump said.
“Nobody puts his name in the headline, Bernie Sanders’ [name], in the headline,” the U.S. leader said.
“I was in the headline of The Washington Post,” Trump said.
“Now, they didn’t do that with Bernie Sanders,” he said. “They didn’t do that with President Obama with the church, the horrible situation with the church,” he said, appearing to reference the 2015 Charleston church shooting. “They didn’t do that. They put my name in the headlines.”
“When I say ‘enemy of the people,’ I’m talking about the fake news,” Trump said, adding: “And it is fake.”
“My people understand,” the U.S. leader said.
In the wake of the recent string of pipe bomb scares, as well as Saturday’s shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Trump has faced widespread scrutiny over his rhetoric, with some critics accusing the U.S. leader of stoking hatred.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dismissed critics’ accusations on Monday, however, insisting that that only the individuals who can be held responsible for such crimes are those who committed them.
“The very first thing that the president did was condemn the attacks both in Pittsburgh and in the pipe bombs. The very first thing the media did was blame the president and make him responsible for these ridiculous acts,” Sanders said. “That is outrageous, that that would be the very first reaction of so many people across this country.”
“The only person responsible for carrying out either of these heinous acts were the individuals who carried them out,” the White House press secretary asserted.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-questions-why-obama-wasnt-blamed-charleston-church-shooting-1193317
