Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said on ABC's "This Week" that no politician, including President Donald Tru...
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said on ABC's "This Week" that no politician, including President Donald Trump, was to blame for shootings like those in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that left at least 29 people dead this weekend.
As Democratic presidential candidates point a finger at the president's divisive rhetoric, Mulvaney said the suspect who allegedly killed 20 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, appeared to have been motivated by beliefs he harbored before Trump became president.
"This was a sick person, the person in Dayton was a sick person," Mulvaney told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl, during an interview Sunday. "No politician is to blame for that. The person who was responsible here are the people who pulled the trigger. We need to figure out how to kind of create less of those kinds of people as a society and not trying to figure out who gets blamed going into the next election."
Rep. Beto O'Rourke, a Texas Democrat running for president, on Saturday called Trump a "racist" and said he "stokes racism in this country." Fellow candidate Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said Trump was "condoning white nationalism."
Several of those killed in El Paso, which borders Mexico, were Mexican citizens, and officials said that they were examining what they called a "manifesto" that they believe was written by the shooter and shows a possible "nexus" to a hate crime.
Pressed by Karl on whether Trump was at all to blame for using words like "invasion" to talk about illegal immigration congresswoman of color should leave the country, Mulvaney said Trump was just as saddened and angered by the shootings as others.
"There's no benefit here to trying to make this a political issue," Mulvaney, who is also the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said, "This is a social issue."
He labeled the gunmen in El Paso and Dayton "crazy people" who "should not be able to get guns." The Dayton gunman, who died, killed at least nine people, authorities said. Dozens of people were injured in each attack.
"Sick people who are intent on doing things like this should not be able to buy guns legally," Mulvaney said.
Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents Texas's 16th Congressional District, said Saturday night that while investigators must complete an investigation, the El Paso suspect's "manifesto" suggested the shooting could have been an act of "domestic terrorism."
“In this country, we have a gun violence epidemic but we also have a hate epidemic," Escobar said in an earlier interview on "This Week" Sunday. "And until we confront that hate and until we confront the weak gun laws that we have we're going to keep seeing this.”
"Today’s shooting in El Paso, Texas, was not only tragic, it was an act of cowardice," President Donald Trump tweetedovernight. "I know that I stand with everyone in this Country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people."
After the Ohio attack, he tweeted that "Information is rapidly being accumulated in Dayton" and noted the law enforcement response "was very rapid in both" Dayton and El Paso. "God bless the people of El Paso Texas," he added. "God bless the people of Dayton, Ohio."
God bless the people of El Paso Texas. God bless the people of Dayton, Ohio.
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