Category: White Supremacy

Trump Endorses Anti-immigrant Former Baseball Player Known for Collecting Nazi Memorabilia

Former Arizona Diamondbacks pitching great Curt Schilling said he is “absolutely considering” running for the U.S. Congress in Arizona, and it appears he has the support of President Donald Trump.

In an email to the Arizona Republic, Schilling, 52, who retired from baseball in 2007, cited immigration issues as motivation for his possible move into politics. The newspaper report notes that Schilling would run against one of the state’s five Democrats, but he did not specify which district he is considering.

“The state is not the state I grew up in. Making Arizona citizens of EVERY Race, religion and sexual orientation 2nd class citizens to illegal immigrants is about as anti-American as it gets,” wrote Schilling. “When you have homeless veterans, children, and you’re spending tax dollars on people smuggling drugs and children across our border someone in charge needs their ass kicked.”

The three-time World Series champion first revealed his plans for a political future on Sunday in an interview with Armed American Radio’s Mark Walters.

“I haven’t said anything publicly, but I’m considering going back to Arizona and running for a congressional seat, one of the blue ones,” he said Sunday. “It’s something that my wife and I have talked about, and she’s now becoming more and more pumped at the potential. Obviously, we’re still quite a few discussions away, but yeah, it’s something we’re absolutely considering.”

In a tweet Tuesday morning, Trump called the news “terrific,” writing, “Curt Schilling, a great pitcher and patriot, is considering a run for Congress in Arizona. Terrific!”

Schilling has been the center of controversy in the past for his race-baiting tweets and harsh anti-Muslim sentiment. In August 2015, Schilling shared a meme on Twitterthat compared Muslims and Nazis.

[Haaretz]

Reality

https://www.mediamatters.org/curt-schilling/trump-endorsed-curt-schillings-possible-run-congress-hes-conspiracy-theorist-who-0

Immigration Chief: ‘Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor Who Can Stand On Their Own 2 Feet’

“Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge,” Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said Tuesday, twisting Emma Lazarus’ famous words on a bronze plaque at the Statue of Liberty.

Cuccinelli was speaking to NPR’s Morning Edition about a new regulation he announced Monday that targets legal immigration. The rule denies green cards and visas to immigrants if they use — or are deemed likely to need — federal, state and local government benefits including food stamps, housing vouchers and Medicaid. The change stands to impact hundreds of thousands of immigrants who come to the United States legally every year.

The final version of the “public charge” rule is scheduled to be published Wednesday in the Federal Register. A public charge refers to a person who relies on public assistance for help.

On Tuesday, Cuccinelli described the public charge as a “burden on the government.” He told NPR the new regulation was a prospective rule, “part of President Trump keeping his promises.”

The new rule will go into effect Oct. 15, and only government aid used after that point will be assessed, Cuccinelli said.

Welfare benefits will be just one factor that immigration service officers use to determine an applicant’s fate in the United States, in addition to age, health, education and financial status.

“If they don’t have future prospects of being legal permanent residents without welfare, that will be counted against them,” Cuccinelli said.

“All immigrants who can stand on their own two feet, self-sufficient, pull themselves up by their bootstraps” would be welcome, he added.

Asked if that changes the definition of the American dream, Cuccinelli said, “No one has a right to become an American who isn’t born here as an American.”

Then he clarified: “It is a privilege to become an American, not a right for anybody who is not already an American citizen, that’s what I was referring to.”

He said the welcoming words from the 1903 plaque at the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor,” were put there “at almost the same time” as when the first public charge law was passed — in 1882.

Critics have denounced the rule as a sweeping attempt to stem immigration and favor wealthy migrants. The regulation is expected to be challenged by immigration groups in court.

Leon Fresco, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Obama administration, said the case could wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I also expect lawsuits from individuals who say that, at the end of the day, if Congress provided certain benefits to be accessible by certain groups of immigrants, that meant that they did not want them then banned under the public charge rule,” Fresco told NPR.

Rumors that the Trump administration was considering the regulation already led to a chilling effect on immigrants looking to put down roots through legal and permanent residency. Public health and social service providers report that immigrants are worried about seeking medical and housing aid for themselves and their children, who may be U.S. citizens.

Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general, has long held a hard-line stance against immigration and asylum policies. President Trump tapped him to be the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in June, bringing him to the helm of an agency he had never worked in.

[NPR]

White Supremacists Responsible for All Race-Based Domestic Terrorism Incidents in 2018 – DOJ Blocked Report

The Trump administration has known since at least April that alleged white supremacists were responsible for every single act of race-based domestic terrorism in the U.S. in 2018, yet not only took no action to combat the growing right wing violent extremism, but actually substantially reduced or even eliminated funding and programsthat combat white supremacist extremism, violence, and terrorism – and then blocked the data from reaching the hands of Congress.

“Domestic Terrorism in 2018,” a document (embedded below) prepared by the State of New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security Preparedness, “shows 25 of the 46 individuals allegedly involved in 32 different domestic terrorism incidents were identified as white supremacists,” Yahoo News’ Jana Winter and Hunter Walker report.

That document finds there were “32 domestic terrorist attacks, disrupted plots, threats of violence, and weapons stockpiling by individuals with a radical political or social agenda who lack direction or influence from foreign terrorist organizations in 2018.”

The report was “circulated” throughout the U.S. Dept. of Justice “and around the country in April just as members of the Senate pushed the DOJ to provide them with precise information about the number of white supremacists involved in domestic terrorism.”

The Justice Department, under President Trump’s hand-picked Attorney General Bill Barr, refused to hand over the data or the document to Congress.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in January of 2019 had already compiled a report, announcing that, “Right-Wing Extremism Linked to Every 2018 Extremist Murder in the U.S., ADL Finds.”

ADL reported that “Right-wing extremists were linked to at least 50 extremist-related murders in the United States in 2018, making them responsible for more deaths than in any year since 1995, according to new data from the ADL.”

1995 was the year domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City federal building, slaughtering 168 people and injuring more than 680 others.

“The tally represents a 35 percent increase from the 37 extremist-related murders in 2017,” ADL reported, “making 2018 the fourth-deadliest year on record for domestic extremist-related killings since 1970. Last year saw the highest percentage of right-wing extremist-related killings since 2012, the last year when all documented killings were by right-wing extremists.”

Why the Dept. of Justice and the White House blocked the data from reaching Congress is now yet another investigation Congress should take up.

Here’s the document the DOJ refused to hand over to Members of the House and Senate:

[New Civil Rights Movement]

Trump: ‘I’d Love to See Kaepernick Back in the NFL But Only if He is Good Enough’

President Donald Trump said he’d “love to see” former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick back in the league, “but only if he is good enough.”

Trump made Kaepernick a target of his ire during his 2016 election campaign, frequently trashing the ex-San Francisco 49er for kneeling during the National Anthem. Kaepernick was protesting racial injustice in America

“I think if he was good enough, I know the owners, I know Bob Kraft, I know so many of the owners. If he’s good enough they’d sign him. So if he’s good enough, I know these people. They would sign him in a heartbeat. They will do anything they can to win games,” Trump told reporters before leaving for a vacation Friday.

“Frankly, I’d love to see Kaepernick come in if he’s good enough. But I don’t want to see him come in because somebody thinks of it’s a good PR move. If he’s good enough, he will be in,” Trump said.

Earlier this year, Kaepernick settled a collusion lawsuit with the NFL, which is subject to a confidentiality agreement.

Kaepernick alleged that NFL owners conspired to keep him off the field after the end of his 2016 contract due to his activism.

Earlier this week, Kaepernick posted a work-out video indicating he was still interested in getting back to playing with an NFL team.

[Mediaite]

Trump Shares Racist Tucker Carlson Clip Amid White Supremacy Controversy

President Donald Trump retweeted a racist clip of Fox News Host Tucker Carlson, who’s facing backlash for claiming the notion of a white supremacy problem in the U.S. is “a hoax” created by the left and the media.

The video ― created by The Daily Caller, a conservative news site that Carlson co-founded ― features the Fox host discussing and questioning the legitimacy of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) prior marriage, immigration status and name. Omar, an American citizen, was born in Somalia and immigrated to the U.S. as a child.

The “sham marriage” that Carlson refers to is a popular right-wing conspiracy theory that Omar married her brother in order to bypass U.S. immigration laws. There is no evidence that indicates this is the case, and the theory originated from an anonymous internet forum post in 2016. 

Omar has denied the claim and provided a timeline of her marital history. In 2018, she showed a reporter from the Minneapolis Star Tribune images of her father’s immigration documents, which did not list her former husband among his children.

But this is not the first time that the president has drawn attention to the unsubstantiated theory.

“Well, there is a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother,” Trump told reporters last month, before adding: “I know nothing about it.”

Trump has a history of engaging in or promoting racist attacks that question the legitimacy of the congresswoman’s status as an American. He has claimed that Omar hates America and said that she, alongside three other progressive Democratic congresswomen, should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

Carlson currently faces public backlash for claiming that white supremacy is not a threat in America just days after a shooter killed 22 people and injured dozens more at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. The shooter reportedly penned a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto before driving nine hours to the largely Hispanic border town.

“This is a hoax, just like the Russia hoax,” Carlson said on Tuesday of the notion that white supremacy was a major threat in the U.S. “It’s a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power. That’s exactly what’s going on.”

Fox News and Carlson have lost several advertisers, including Long John Silver’s, Nestlé and HelloFresh, in the aftermath of his claim.

When the president was asked on Wednesday if he was concerned about the rising threat of white supremacy, he told reporters he was concerned about all hate groups, “whether it’s white supremacy, whether it’s any other kind of supremacy.”

[Huffington Post]

State Department confirms alleged leader of white-nationalist group is an employee, won’t say if he’ll be fired

A current State Department official served as the leader of a white-nationalist organization in Washington, DC, according to a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released on Wednesday. 

The official, identified as Matthew Gebert, “hosted white nationalists at his home and published white nationalist propaganda online,” the report said. 

A State Department spokesperson on Wednesday told INSIDER that Gebert is a foreign-affairs officer assigned to the Bureau of Energy Resources in Washington, DC.

When asked whether the allegations in the SPLC report would affect Gebert’s employment status, the department spokesperson told INSIDER, “The Department of State cannot comment on personnel issues but is committed to providing an inclusive workplace.” 

Gebert was placed on leave as of Thursday, according to a Politico report. 

Gebert joined the department in 2013, according to the SPLC report, during the Obama administration. Based on his position as a foreign-affairs officer, he’s a civil servant and not a political appointee. 

According to the SPLC report, Gebert operated online under the pseudonym “Coach Finstock.”

“Through that alias, he expressed a desire to build a country for whites only,” the report said.

[Business Insider]

Donald Trump Prevented attempts by DHS to make combating White Supremacy domestic terrorism a higher priority

White House officials rebuffed efforts by their colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security for more than a year to make combating domestic terror threats, such as those from white supremacists, a greater priority as specifically spelled out in the National Counterterrorism Strategy, current and former senior administration officials as well as other sources close to the Trump administration tell CNN.

“Homeland Security officials battled the White House for more than a year to get them to focus more on domestic terrorism,” one senior source close to the Trump administration tells CNN. “The White House wanted to focus only on the jihadist threat which, while serious, ignored the reality that racial supremacist violence was rising fast here at home. They had major ideological blinders on.”

The National Counterterrorism Strategy, issued last fall, states that “Radical Islamist terrorists remain the primary transnational terrorist threat to the United States and its vital national interests,” which few experts dispute. What seems glaring to these officials is the minimizing of the threat of domestic terrorism, which they say was on their radar as a growing problem.”

Ultimately the White House just added one paragraph about domestic terrorism as a throw-away line,” a senior source involved in the discussion told CNN. That paragraph mentions “other forms of violent extremism, such as racially motivated extremism, animal rights extremism, environmental extremism, sovereign citizen extremism, and militia extremism.” It made no mention of white supremacists. (A separate paragraph in the report mentions investigating domestic terrorists with connections to overseas terrorists, but that does not seem to be a reference to white supremacists.)

The document mentions that domestic terrorism is on the rise, but the subject is only briefly addressed, all the more stark given that FBI Director Christopher Wray’s July testimony that there have been almost as many domestic terror arrests in the first three quarters of the fiscal year — about 100 — as there have been arrests connected to international terror. Wray noted that the majority of the domestic terrorism cases were motivated by some version of white supremacist violence, adding that the FBI takes the threat “extremely seriously.”

Said a current senior Trump administration official, “DHS is surging resources to the [domestic terrorism] issue, but they’re behind the curve because of lack of support from the White House. There’s some legislative and appropriations work happening, but the reality is there won’t be a FY20 budget for the department so they will have to make do.”

Critics of President Donald Trup hit out at the White House’s lack of support for the department’s attempts at combating domestic terrorism, including multiple Democratic presidential candidates.

“People are getting killed, and this President is turning a blind eye to America’s national security threats,” said California Sen. Kamala Harris on Twitter.

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, another presidential candidate, who is from El Paso, tweeted, “Despite the evidence, despite the threat to our country that domestic terrorism poses, this president did nothing. He made us less safe.”

In March of this year, right after the slaughter of 51 Muslims in New Zealand by a white supremacist, Trump said he did not think white nationalism was a rising threat around the world. “I don’t really,” he said. “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”

One former senior administration official says he “took some hope and comfort that domestic terrorism was even mentioned” in the National Counterterrorism Strategy, because it meant agencies could use it as a hook to prioritize the threat with funding and manpower.

A senior administration official defended the final analysis.

“This Administration’s National Strategy for Counterterrorism was the first to ever include domestic terrorism,” the official said. “This issue continues to be a priority for this Administration, and the National Security Council has launched an interagency process focused on combating domestic terrorism in support of the President’s counterterrorism strategy.”

Why the White House pushed back so much is a matter of some debate. The former senior administration official noted that the White House, specifically the President, has a problem criticizing white supremacy, and says he “didn’t have expectation they would get behind it” — the brief mention of domestic terrorism as a threat in the National Counterterrorism Strategy — “because the preponderance of it involves white supremacy and that’s not something this administration is comfortable speaking out against, until the other day by the President and even that was pretty hedged.”

The former senior administration official noted Monday’s remarks following the El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, shootings were read from a teleprompter. “You don’t hear the President mention white supremacists when he’s speaking extemporaneously.”

The senior source close to the Trump administration acknowledged the President’s reluctance to criticize white supremacists was part of “an overlay” of all these discussions.

“You know it will trigger the boss,” the source said. “Instinctively you know he’s going to be averse to mentioning that.”

But, the official said, “primarily the people with their pen on the document,” were motivated by something else. “The last administration was too politically cautious in calling out the threat of Islamist terrorism,” the official said. “But that doesn’t mean we needed to overcorrect and ignore what was a surging domestic threat.”

The sources tell CNN that the one paragraph about domestic terrorism was the best the Department of Homeland Security officials could get. DHS went with an “all forms of terror” approach and “restructured offices and experts to be ideologically agnostic but focused on the threat wherever it morphed,” said the senior source involved in the discussions. “When it became clear the White House was going to say little if anything on domestic terrorism we asked that they at least say in the Counterterrorism Strategy that there would be a subsequent domestic terrorism strategy.”

But the White House would not agree to that, either, sources tell CNN.

During the lengthy back and forth, the senior source tells CNN, one White House official proposed that the National Counterterrorism Strategy focus radical Islamists and foreign drug dealers, since that would please the President.

“But those things don’t go together,” the source recalled. “That was part of the warped worldview they had there.”

[CNN]

After watching Lou Dobbs, Trump attacked Google for firing an apparent white nationalist sympathizer

President Donald Trump spent part of Tuesday morning tweeting about a segment from Fox Business host Lou Dobbs’ show which championed Kevin Cernekee, a former Google engineer who claims he was fired because of the company’s purported anti-conservative bias. “All very illegal,” Trump concluded of the company’s purported actions, adding, “We are watching Google very closely!” This is at least the third time Trump has publicly suggested he would take action against Google based on what he’s seen on Fox.

Right-wing media have trumpeted Cernekee’s story over the past few days, with outlets fitting him neatly into their narrative that tech companies have it in for Republicans. But the story is more complicated than that: While it portrays him as a rank-and-file conservative, Cernekee appears to have repeatedly defended white nationalists on internal Google message boards.

How Cernekee’s story ended up on the president’s Twitter says a lot about the right-wing media ecosystem, their obsession with finding supposed conservative martyrs of tech companies, and Trump’s reckless consumption and promotion of whatever Fox News happens to put in front of his eyes.

The cautionary tale of “Republican engineer” Kevin Cernekee

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal’s Rob Copeland profiled Cernekee, portraying him as a “Republican engineer” fired from the company for the conservative views he expressed on the company’s internal message boards.

“Google told Mr. Cernekee in a termination letter that he was let go for multiple violations of company policies, including improperly downloading company information and misuse of the remote-access software system,” Copeland reported. “Mr. Cernekee, who hasn’t spoken publicly before about his status at Google, denies that. He says he was fired for being an outspoken conservative in famously liberal Silicon Valley.” 

Copeland largely paraphrased Cernekee’s message board posts or accepted his explanations of them rather than quoting their content. This made it impossible for readers to assess precisely what his views were. But the story’s 28th paragraph provides a tantalizing detail: A fellow conservative engineer “internally circulated a dossier describing Mr. Cernekee as ‘the face of the alt-right’ at Google” (that engineer was also later fired).

It remains contested whether Cernekee’s views triggered his termination. But the Journal’s framing of Cernekee as simply a “Republican” with “conservative take[s]” who stands up for other “right-leaning employees” created the impression that it is open season on anyone to the right of Hillary Clinton. That makes his actual opinions relevant. 

The Daily Caller, which has its own complicated history with the alt-right, pulled on that thread a few days later (though only after producing multiple stories amplifying Cernekee’s claims). Deputy Editor J. Arthur Bloom reported that Cernekee had “suggested raising money under the auspices of the company’s free speech listserv for a bounty to identify Richard Spencer’s assailant.” 

After Spencer, one of the nation’s most prominent white nationalists, was punched while giving an interview in January 2017, Cernekee suggested putting together a group donation to support the search for the puncher through racist troll Charles Johnson’s website.

Cernekee identified Spencer only as a “well known conservative activist.” When other Google employees pointed out that Spencer is “a prominent, vehement racist and anti­-Semite,” Cernekee defended him. 

The Daily Caller story was subsequently confirmed by BuzzFeed News tech reporter Ryan Mac. 

Bloom also reported that Cernekee had criticized a media description of the “Golden State Skinheads” as a neo-Nazi group, and he praised the organization for “[standing] up for free speech and free association.”

“Conservatives angry at big tech may view such postings as a cautionary lesson in the importance of vetting their cause célèbres,” Bloom concluded. 

Indeed.

Conservative media made Cernekee a cause célèbre

Right-wing media outlets have spent the last several years trumpeting complaints that social media platforms are biased against conservatives. This behavior is consistent with conservatives’ decades-long strategy of decrying the news media as biased against them in order to influence media coverage. But it is inconsistent with the facts.

“There is no evidence that Google, Facebook, or any other major tech company is biased against conservative employees or conservative content,” Recode reported in response to Cernekee’s allegations. “While it is true that most tech employees lean liberal in their personal beliefs, that doesn’t mean that their employers discriminate in the workplace, or in the products they build and maintain.”

Cernekee’s story echoed the conservative narrative about tech companies’ bias, and it rocketed through the right-wing media after Thursday’s Wall Street Journal profile. He was treated as both a conservative martyr and as a credible source for information on Google’s operations.

Notably, these aggregations portrayed Cernekee as a typical conservative, with only the Post mentioning that Cernekee had been linked to the “alt-right.”

By Friday night, Cernekee was being feted on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, a regular home for both deceptive attacks on tech companies and white supremacist talking points. After providing the former engineer the platform to repeat his allegation that he was fired for being a conservative, Carlson turned his attention to Google’s influence on the 2020 election. 

“Do you believe that Google will attempt to influence the election outcome or will attempt to try to prevent Trump from being reelected?” Carlson asked. 

“I do believe so. I think that’s a major threat,” he replied. 

“And yet, Congress, including Republicans are just sitting back and acting like it’s not happening,” Carlson responded. “It’s disgusting. Kevin, thank you for sounding that alarm.” 

That appearance launched a new wave of aggregations by conservative media outlets.

Fox’s morning show Fox & Friends hosted Cernekee on Monday where he repeated his allegation that Google intends to prevent Trump’s reelection. 

That interview, in turn, became the basis for a segment on the Monday night edition of Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs Tonight, which aired several hours after the Daily Caller published its story detailing Cernekee’s postings. 

“That is nasty stuff,” the host commented of Cernekee’s allegations, “and by the way, it’s illegal.” He later added that the Justice Department “should be sitting right inside the Google complex” to prevent “a fraud on the American public.” His guest, Breitbart.com’s Peter Schweizer, added that DOJ should be “monitoring what Google is doing in real time now.”

Dobbs’ show attracts fewer than 400,000 viewers on average. But Trump is often one of them, and he was apparently watching Monday night. 

Cernekee’s allegations enter the Trump-Fox feedback loop

Trump is obsessed with Fox, watching hours of its programming every day and frequently tweeting about segments that catch his attention. This Trump-Fox feedback loop regularly influences the Trump administration’s policy, personnel, and political strategy. 

On Monday morning, Trump promised to “honor the sacred memory of those we have lost” during mass shootings in El Paso, TX, and Dayton, OH, by “acting as one people.” That night, he tweeted three clips from Dobbs’ show. Two of the president’s tweets dealt with the program’s discussion of Cernekee’s claim that Google is biased against him. 

The next morning, after tweeting two quotes from the morning’s edition of Fox & Friends, Trump returned to the issue of Google’s bias. 

In a tweetstorm, the president contrasted what he said he had been told by Google CEO Sundar Pichai with what he had heard on Dobbs’ show the previous night, including from Cernekee.

The Trump-Fox feedback loop is particularly salient in giving the president targets for his ire, and the network’s obsession with tech platform bias has repeatedly resulted in angry Trump tweets. This is at least the third time Trump has responded to Fox segments by tweeting that his administration would take action against Google.

In August 2018, in response to a conspiracy-minded Dobbs segment, the president accused Google of illegally “suppressing voices of Conservatives” adding that his administration would address the situation. 

And last month, Trump tweeted that his administration would review whether Google has committed “treason” after he saw a Fox & Friends news brief in which one of his supporters baselessly floated that claim. 

Conservatives have a political and financial interest in ginning up claims that the tech platforms are biased against them, and right-wing media eagerly amplify their claims for their own interests. This pattern will continue and such issues that don’t hold up to scrutiny will be thrust into the mainstream discourse because the president of the United States loves to watch Fox News.

[Media Matters]

Trump blames news media for causing ‘anger and rage’ in wake of domestic terror attack

Donald Trump has blamed what he called “Fake News” for stoking “anger and rage” in the wake of two gun attacks that killed a total of 29 people, one of which is being treated as a case of domestic terrorism.

In a tweet on Monday morning, the president said the media had a responsibility to safeguard “life and safety” in the United States. 

“Fake News has contributed greatly to the anger and rage that has built up over many years,” he wrote. 

“News coverage has got to start being fair, balanced and unbiased, or these terrible problems will only get worse!”

The tweet came at the end of a string of angry missives about the El Pasoand Dayton mass shootings over the weekend, which saw 29 people shot dead in less than 24 hours. 

Earlier, Mr Trump had thrown his support behind tougher background checks for buying guns, but then insisted any legislation was tied to immigration reform. 

There is no obvious connection between the two shootings and immigration reform. The suspect in El Paso, Patrick Crusius, is believed to be a white nationalist and police are treating the attack as an act of domestic terrorism.

Now, the president has turned his ire on the familiar foe of the media and appeared to accuse journalists of being partly to blame for the epidemic of gun violence which blights America. 

Speaking to reporters just before boarding Air Force One, Mr Trump had offered his condolences to the families of those killed in Dayton and El Paso. 

“We love the people,” he added. “Hate has no place in our country.”

However, earlier Democrats had accused Mr Trump of “sowing seeds of hate” and said he, not the media, was responsible for the wave of right-wing terrorist attacks in recent years.

Cory Booker, a Democratic senator and presidential candidate, told NBC: “You reap what you sow, and he is sowing seeds of hate in this country.

“This harvest of hate violence we’re seeing right now lies at his feet. He is responsible.”

Mr Trump has repeatedly attacked the media since he was elected, condemning almost any critical coverage of his divisive presidency as “fake news”. 

Although the business mogul’s linking of the press with the two shootings appears to simply continue this trend, he is not the first person to connect journalism and gun violence. 

There is some evidence the media’s coverage of mass shootings can lead to a wave of copycat attacks. 

One study from last year by Australian researchers concluded there were spikes in the numbers of shootings in America after a high profile incident is given wall-to-wall exposure on rolling TV news. 

In total, the study suggested 58 per cent of all shootings in the three year sample they examined could be linked to coverage of previous tragedies. 

[The Independent]

Trump Calls Bannon One of His ‘Best Pupils’ After the Former Aide Showers Him With Compliments on T

President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Friday to embrace  former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon as one of his “best pupils” after his ex-aide appeared on CNBC and dissed Trump’s 2020 rivals. “Nice to see that one of my best pupils is still a giant Trump fan,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Steve joined me after I won the primaries, but I loved working with him!” The tweet, which also included a clip of Bannon praising Trump as a “great leader,” was a far cry from Trump’s earlier Twitter takedowns of his former aide, in which he mocked Bannon as “Sloppy Steve” and claimed he’d “cried” when he was booted from the White House. In his comments to CNBC, Bannon talked up Trump’s chances of winning a second term and said no current Democrat in the presidential race could beat Trump. “If the Democratic Party wants to take on Donald Trump, I got a news flash for them: They’re not going to take on Donald Trump with Joe Biden,” he said, adding that Biden likely couldn’t take Trump’s “withering assault” during the campaign. He described the rest of the Democratic field as “a pillow fight” that couldn’t withstand the “amazing campaigner” Trump is. “If they want to take out Donald Trump, I don’t see anybody on the stage on either night that are going to come close to taking out Donald Trump,” Bannon said.

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