JAKE TAPPER: Hello. I’m Jake Tapper in Washington, where the state of our union is appalled. We begin this morning with a retweet from the president of the United States, not a message about healing or uniting the country one week after two horrifying massacres, not about the victims of those tragedies.

Instead, President Trump using his massive Twitter platform, 63 million followers, to spread a deranged conspiracy theory, tying the death of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in prison to the president's former political rivals the Clintons.

I’m not going to show you the tweet, but the spokesperson for former president Bill Clinton responded to the president retweeting it, saying — quote — “Ridiculous and, of course, not true, and Donald Trump knows it. Has he triggered the 25th Amendment yet?” . . .

President Trump has also given voice to the lie that the migrant and refugee crisis at the southern border of the U.S. is a plot by Jewish billionaire George Soros to fund a — quote — “invasion.”

That is a conspiracy theory that was the motive for mass slaughter in Pittsburgh and El Paso.

This is no longer just irresponsible and indecent. It is dangerous.

Joining me now from his hometown of El Paso, after having canceled his campaign events for the week to deal with the mourning citizens in his city, Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke. . .

What was your reaction when you saw the tweets?

BETO O’ROURKE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is another example of our president using this position of public trust to attack his political enemies with unfounded conspiracy theories, and also to try to force you and me and all of us to focus on his bizarre behavior, instead of the fact that we just lost 22 people in this community, nine people in Dayton, Ohio; we’re seeing an epidemic of gun violence every single day in this country. . .

He’s changing the conversation. And if we allow him to do that, then we will never be able to focus on the true problems, of which he is a part, and make sure that we get to the solutions, now, whether that means legislation that keeps guns out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have it.