Corey Booker and Beto O’Rourke, two 2020 democratic candidates, have come out openly critical of how Trump communicates and the ramifications of the speech he uses in wake of the New Zealand shootings. A Manifesto written by the gunman he shows that he is a Trump supporter, although disagreeing with his policies, does see him “as a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” While Trump does condemn the act, it doesn’t change his inflammatory remarks in the past about immigrants and Muslims or that there has seemingly been a rise in attacks attributed to white nationalists and/or white supremacists.
Booker’s issue with Trump is that “his language is causing pain and fear. The way he’s talking is making people afraid.” He believes his use of language fuels the recent rise of hate crimes and due to these rising hostilities people are afraid to go to mosques or synagogues. His opinion on Trump as a leader is that, “we have a president that can’t stand up with any moral authority and remind us that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and it’s despicable.”
Beto O’Rourke also delved into the issue during a campaign event in Detroit. His opinion on the matter is, “A president who calls Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, a president who wants to ban all Muslim travel to the United States of America because, the implication being, Muslims are somehow more dangerous or violent than people of other traditions of faith, a president who calls Klansmen and Nazis and white nationalists ‘very fine people’ is giving permission to others in this country and around the world to commit acts of hatred.”
Trump and his chief of staff have already been vocal in their disagreement with the comments made by Booker, O’Rourke and the media. Trump, of course, tweeted that, “The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous!” While this is standard for Trump, a more professional statement was released by his acting chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney stating that, “The president is not a white supremacist. I’m not sure how many times we have to say that. And to simply ask the question, every time something like this happens overseas, or even domestically, to say,’Oh my goodness, it must somehow be the president’s fault,’ speaks to a politicization of everything that I think is undermining sort of the institutions that we have in the country today.”
