Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is criticizing prominent voices on the left who denounced Republicans for urging prayer but taking no action on gun violence in the wake of the Minneapolis Catholic school mass shooting that left two young children dead and 17 wounded.

The Louisiana lawmaker pinned the blame for gun violence on “mental health” and “the human heart,” while insisting that guns are not the problem.

The House has voted to cut mental health services, including Medicaid, which is the largest payer of behavioral health services. Additionally, President Donald Trump has slashed $1 billion in school mental health programs that Congress approved in response to the 2022 Uvalde, Texas mass school shooting.

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“It’s incredible to me that Jen Psaki and Gavin Newsom and others would attack religion, diminish the faith of millions of Americans at a time of such great tragedy,” Speaker Johnson alleged (video below). “There are a lot of commonsense solutions, things that can be done to protect children at schools and in churches that do not involve taking away the constitutional rights of law-abiding American citizens.”

Wednesday morning, Psaki, the former White House press secretary turned MSNBC anchor, lamented, “Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers [do] not end school shootings. prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.”

Speaker Johnson continued, insisting that now is not the time to “politicize these issues.”

“And at the end of the day,” he continued, “the problem is not guns, okay, Jen Psaki? The problem is the human heart. It’s mental health.”

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In late April, the Trump Department of Education announced that it would stop funding “roughly $1 billion in grants that were meant to boost the ranks and training of mental health professionals who work in schools, saying the grant awards made under the Biden administration now conflict with Trump administration priorities,” Education Week reported. “The funds were authorized by Congress in the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which passed after 19 students and two teachers lost their lives in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

The Trump Education Department alleged the $1 billion in funds might “undermine the well-being of the students these programs are intended to help.”

Critics blasted Johnson’s remarks.

“The GOP refuses to expand Medicaid for psychiatric care, cuts funding for ‘mental health,’ LGBTQ+ hotlines, denies the value of community services, yet feigns interest in ‘underlying causes’ of gun violence,” charged award-winning TV writer and playwright Hal Corley.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Speaker Mike Johnson on the Minnesota shooting: “At the end of the day the problem is not guns. Ok, Jen Psaki? The problem is the human heart. It’s mental health.” pic.twitter.com/hrLR9ev3O9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 29, 2025

READ MORE: ‘Hard Questions’: VP Echoes False Claim About Antidepressants and Mass Shootings

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President Donald Trump has directed the Department of Homeland Security to cancel former Vice President Kamala Harris’s Secret Service protection, just as she is about to launch her national book tour.

According to CNN, by law, Harris’ protection was slated to end July 21, but President Joe Biden via a directive quietly ordered her protection to last an additional year.

“You are hereby authorized to discontinue any security-related procedures previously authorized by Executive Memorandum, beyond those required by law, for the following individual, effective September 1, 2025: Former Vice President Kamala D. Harris,” the directive reads.

CNN also reports that the cancellation includes ending “constant analysis of threat intelligence and covering in-person situations, emails, texts and social media.” Federal agents will also cease protection of her Los Angeles home.

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A spokesperson for California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom told CNN, “The safety of our public officials should never be subject to erratic, vindictive political impulses.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass blasted the decision.

“This is another act of revenge following a long list of political retaliation in the form of firings, the revoking of security clearances and more. This puts the former Vice President in danger and I look forward to working with the Governor to make sure Vice President Harris is safe in Los Angeles.”

Axios adds that “Harris joins a slew of Trump adversaries whom have seen the president abruptly end their security details amid a volatile political climate. She faced death threats while in office and on the campaign trail last year.”

U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) wrote: “Another dangerous reminder that there’s no agenda more important to Donald Trump than retribution. He feeds conspiracy theories to his followers. Makes their targets more vulnerable. Then pulls their security. This is a dark road. And we have a President that is all-too-willing to drive us down it.”

READ MORE: ‘Hard Questions’: VP Echoes False Claim About Antidepressants and Mass Shootings

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Vice President JD Vance is drawing on a decades-old conspiracy theory that falsely claims antidepressants are responsible for mass shootings.

Speaking to steelworkers in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on Thursday, the Vice President addressed the mass shooting a day earlier at a Minneapolis Catholic school—where two young children were killed during Mass and 17 others were wounded, including a dozen children—when he declared that America faces a mental health crisis and alleged that Americans take too much psychiatric medication.

“We take way more psychiatric medication than any other nation on earth, and I think it’s time for us to start asking some very hard questions about the root causes of this violence,” Vance declared, after speaking at length about the shooting. “I’m going to be part of that and the First Lady and the President are going to be part of that, but that’s gonna be an American conversation that we’re gonna have together.”

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Multiple studies have found no evidence that anti-depressants cause mass shootings.

“The suggestion that antidepressants are linked to mass shootings has been amplified by right-wing figures such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson,” The Washington Post reported last year. “But experts caution there is no credible research linking antidepressants to mass shootings. Studies show only a small percentage of mass shooters were taking medications or suffering from serious mental illness when they committed the crimes.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly tried to link antidepressants with gun violence, and like Vance, did so again on Thursday.

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“We are doing those kind of studies now at NIH, we’re launching studies on potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence,” Kennedy said.

“You know, many of them, on their — had black box warnings that warn of suicidal ideation and homicidal ideation,” he alleged. “So we can’t exclude those as a culprit and those are the kind of studies that we’re doing.”

Some critics slammed the Vice President.

“Three years ago, Republicans killed a bill to expand mental health services in schools. Then, the Trump-Vance administration defunded school counselors and social workers,” charged Human Rights Campaign national press secretary Brandon Wolf.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Vance: This happens too much in our country. We really do have I think a mental health crisis We take way more psychiatric medication than any other nation and I think it’s time for us to start asking some very hard questions about the root causes of this violence pic.twitter.com/xKV6hkno8n

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 28, 2025

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Image via Reuters