Donald Trump has received a lot of flak over the last few days, all of it warranted, for encouraging violence against immigrants and people of color. “Other countries” are allowed to shoot migrants, he lamented to supporters back in May as his reelection campaign flooded the internet with ads about an “invasion” on the southern border. “Other countries stand [at the border] with machine guns, ready to fire,” he told Sean Hannity in March, noting that “it’s a very effective way of doing” things. So when a mass shooting in El Paso occurred over the weekend, perpetrated by a guy who wrote a manifesto about an immigrant “invasion,” it wasn’t too hard to connect the large orange dots, or to figure out where someone might have gotten the idea that it’s okay to kill Latinos.

According to Trump, though, not only is his rhetoric not to blame for the recent violence and a spike in hate crimes, but it’s actually unifying country. “I think my rhetoric brings people together,” he told reporters on Wednesday at a memorial event in El Paso that no one wanted him to attend. He added that the only people criticizing him for all but giving the El Paso shooter a ride to the Walmart where 22 people were killed are politicians, vastly underestimating the number of Americans who think he’s a plague on society. “My critics are political people trying to make points,” he said. “No part of me right now is thinking about politics, is thinking about any campaign or election. All of me is with and thinking about this community.” (Shortly before leaving Washington for Texas, the president tweeted, falsely, that “Beto (phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage) O’Rourke, who is embarrassed by my last visit to the Great State of Texas, where I trounced him, and is now even more embarrassed by polling at 1% in the Democrat Primary, should respect the victims & law enforcement — & be quiet!”) Slipping into the third person, he said that Saturday’s shooting “had nothing to do with President Trump. So, these are people that are looking for political gain. I don’t think they’re getting it. And as much as possible, I’ve tried to stay out of that.” He then called Joe Biden “incompetent”—a word he seemingly learned just this morning—saying that his 2020 opponent “has lost his fastball.”

The spin that politicians are the only people blaming Trump for violence against immigrants was echoed by Kellyanne Conway, who told Fox News, “I can’t think of a time when we've seen more of a split screen,” between Democrats and the president, whom she praised for “not taking the bait,” despite literally trashing O’Rourke hours earlier. “He’s not blaming them back,” Conway said, saying that politicians like Biden “are reacting and craving for political points” while “my boss, our president, is doing it.”

Trump’s claim that his highly divisive rhetoric “brings people together” was reminiscent of a similar line of batshit logic he trotted out late last month, when he said that African Americans had called the White House to praise him for saying they are “living in hell.” The president also had Both Sides: The Sequel moment on Wednesday, when he told reporters, “I am concerned about the rise of any group of hate...whether it’s white supremacy, or any other kind of supremacy.”

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