White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt argued that addressing the small number of mass shootings committed by transgender Americans begins with designating Antifa, a loosely organized anti-fascist movement, as a domestic terrorist group.
President Donald Trump on Sunday was asked about “transgender extremism,” and whether the FBI should be investigating. “We’re looking at it very strongly,” he said. “Something seems to be going on but you can’t make that statement yet.”
Factcheck.org reported last week that the Gun Violence Archive “lists five mass shootings by transgender or nonbinary people since January 2013. That’s less than 0.1% of the mass shootings it says happened in that period.”
The Daily Wire’s Mary Olohan on Monday asked Leavitt the question again.
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Listing three incidents, including the Charlie Kirk assassination which reportedly was not committed by a transgender shooter, Olohan said: “I asked the president last night on Air Force One about this pattern of transgender violence, we’re seeing, um, you know, Charlie’s, Charlie’s killer, lived with his boyfriend, who identifies as transgender, and then we have the Annunciation shooting. Covenant shooting. All of these incidents. The president said that we’re looking into transgender violence. Does that mean the FBI is looking into it, and can you give any more clarity on how the administration is viewing this uptaking, specifically, transgender violence?”
Leavitt responded, calling it “definitely something worth looking into, and I think anyone who denies that at this point is being willfully ignorant.”
Professing that the “administration is taking it seriously, all causes of violence, and why these people would be driven to such evil and such hatred.”
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She said that “there’s probably many answers to that question, but the administration is really focused on all of them.”
“For individuals, investigations, and cases, of course, the FBI and the Department of Justice are leading those.”
“But as for this overall, violence and domestic terrorism that we’re seeing, the White House and the president’s policy team will be leading the charge, and that really begins with designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.”
Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick remarked, “In a time when we should be bringing down the temperature, the White House is deliberately choosing to fan the flames of division.”
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Image via Reuters