Sad on top of sad…
Melania Trump tweeted the now infamous photo of herself grinning while holding a baby whose parents were murdered during the recent mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. She is with an equally upbeat Trump, giving a thumbs-up, and the baby’s uncle. (The woman is unidentified, but I assume she’s hospital staff.)
The baby, a two-month old named Paul, sustained injuries when his mother, Jordan Anchondo, fell on him in an attempt to shield him from gunfire. She, and her husband, Andre Anchondo, died at the scene. Paul was grazed by a bullet and sustained broken fingers and some bruises, but was already released from the hospital by the time the Trump rolling fiasco arrived.
None of the eight patients who were being treated at El Paso University Medical Center would meet with Trump but apparently, baby Paul’s uncle wanted to, so he was brought back to the hospital just for this sad photo opp.
Paul’s uncle told NPR before Trump’s visit to El Paso,
Though the president has been met by protesters, some of whom think he helped incite the violence in El Paso with his language about immigrants, Tito [Anchondo] sees it differently.
“I can see why people would believe that,” Tito says. “And yes, maybe he said things in bad taste. But I think people are misconstruing President Trump’s ideas.”
Tito Anchondo says his family has always been Republican conservatives. “My brother [Paul’s father] was very supportive of Trump,” he said, adding that he would like to sit down with the president and tell him about their pain.
“I want to see his reaction in person,” he said. “I want to see if he’s genuine and see if my political views are right or wrong. And see if he feels maybe some kind of remorse for statements that he’s made. I just want to have a human-to-human talk with him and see how he feels.”
How TRUMP feels? Yes, remorseful would be a human response. Is Tito Anchondo aware of these facts…? (One would assume he is.)
At a Trump rally after the president asked rhetorically what could be done about illegal immigrants, some yelled out,
“Shoot ’em!”
Trump replied,
“You can only get away with that in the panhandle…
A 21 year-old from a Dallas suburb, then got in his car and murdered 21 people in El Paso, including Tito’s brother and his wife. He confessed he was targeting “Mexicans.”
As Newsweek noted:
CNN host Jim Acosta said on Thursday night that according to the hospital official, the president displayed an “absence of empathy” during the visit.
The hospital official went on to say the president made other comments similar to his remarks about congressman Beto O’Rourke that left some staffers thinking that Trump was not focused enough on consoling people, Acosta added.
The network also reported how White House aides had conceded that the president’s visits to Dayton and El Paso did not go as planned.
New video released show how he bragged about crowd sizes while visiting patients and denouncing local officials.
What an insult to your brother’s memory to meet and pose with a man who was indirectly responsible for his death, divides the country with his rhetoric, encourages violence almost daily, shows no remorse or empathy EVER and will do nothing to get assault weapons off the street, because he takes blood money from the NRA.
This is how a leader behaves. Former President Obama said after the shootings,
“No other developed nation tolerates the levels of gun violence that we do. Every time this happens, we’re told that tougher gun laws won’t stop all murders. … But the evidence shows that they can stop some killings.”
He called on the country to
“send a clarion call and behave with the values of tolerance and diversity that should be the hallmark of our democracy.”
I wonder, which America will baby Paul grow up in?
I met many incredible people in Dayton, Ohio & El Paso, Texas yesterday. Their communities are strong and unbreakable. @potus and I stand with you! pic.twitter.com/SHzV6zcVKR
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) August 8, 2019
(Photo, Twitter; via Jezebel)
