Washington — President Trump said Monday he would have ordered flags to be lowered in honor of the Minnesota state lawmaker who was assassinated this summer at her home if he had been asked.
The White House has paid tribute in numerous ways to slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, a close ally of Mr. Trump, ordering flags to be flown at half-staff after Kirk was fatally shot during an event on a Utah college campus. The moves have prompted criticism about why the president did not take similar actions after the fatal shooting of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband in June.
“Had the governor of Minnesota asked me to do that, I would have done that gladly,” Mr. Trump told CBS News’ chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes while taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office.
In June, Mr. Trump was asked aboard Air Force One whether he had called Walz after the Minnesota assassination. Another state lawmaker was also targeted in the attack, and he and his wife sustained serious injuries.
“The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. So, you know, I could be nice and call him, but why waste time?” Mr. Trump said of Walz.
On Monday, Cordes also asked Mr. Trump why he has made the case that political violence is only coming from one side of the political spectrum.
“I didn’t say it was on one side,” Mr. Trump said. “But I say the radical left causes tremendous violence, and they seem to do it in a bigger way. But the radical left really has caused a lot of problems for this country.”
Mr. Trump has blamed Kirk’s shooting on “radical left political violence.” In a video shared after Kirk’s death, Mr. Trump listed off several other instances of violence, including last year’s assassination attempt against him in Pennsylvania, the 2017 shooting of Republican Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and the December killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO.
Investigators have not revealed a suspected motive behind the Kirk shooting.
Absent from Mr. Trump’s examples were recent acts of political violence that targeted Democrats, including Hortman’s death, an attack on Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband in their California home and an arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence.
Mr. Trump posted about Hortman’s death at the time, calling it a “terrible shooting” that “appears to be a targeted attack,” and writing: “Such horrific violence will not be tolerated.”
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