UVALDE, Texas, May 29 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden tried to comfort families in the south Texas town of Uvalde on Sunday after the nation’s deadliest school shooting in a decade as federal officials announced they would review local law enforcement’s slow response to the attack.
Anger has mounted over the decision by law enforcement agencies in Uvalde to allow the shooter to remain in a classroom for nearly an hour while officers waited in the hallway and children inside the room made panicked 911 calls for help. read more
The president and first lady Jill Biden wiped away tears as they visited memorials at the Robb Elementary School where the gunman killed 19 students and two teachers, laying white roses and paying respects to makeshift shrines to the victims.
“Do something,” a crowd chanted outside Sacred Heart Catholic Church as Biden exited after attending mass.
“We will,” he answered.
The Bidens met privately with victims’ families and survivors for several hours before later meeting behind closed doors with first responders.
“We grieve with you. We pray with you. We stand with you. And we’re committed to turning this pain into action,” Biden tweeted in the early evening before concluding his visit.
Police say the gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, entered the school on Tuesday with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle after earlier shooting his grandmother, who survived. read more
Official accounts of how police responded to the shooting have flip-flopped wildly. The U.S. Department of Justice on Sunday said it would review the local law enforcement response at the request of Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin. read more
“I feel sorry for them because they have to live with that mistake of just standing by,” Julian Moreno, a former pastor at Primera Iglesia Bautista and great-grandfather of one of the girls killed, said of Uvalde’s police.
U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz, whose tactical officers led an assault that eventually ended the standoff at the school, defended his agency’s actions.
“When my agents got the call, they rolled as quickly as they could,” Ortiz told Reuters on Sunday.
The on-site commander, the chief of the school district’s police department, believed the gunman was no longer an active shooter but was instead barricaded inside and that children were no longer at risk, a Texas state official said last week.
The Uvalde shooting has once again put gun control at the top of the nation’s agenda, months ahead of the November midterm elections, with supporters of stronger gun laws arguing that the latest bloodshed represents a tipping point.
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U.S. President Joe Biden embraces Mandy Gutierrez, Principal at Robb Elementary School, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in the deadliest U.S. school shooting in nearly a decade, as first lady Jill Biden and Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (C.I.S.D.) Superintendent Hal Harrell stand next to him, in Uvalde, Texas, U.S. May 29, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello
Biden, a Democrat, has repeatedly called for major reforms to America’s gun laws but has been powerless to stop mass shootings or convince Republicans that stricter controls could stem the carnage.
‘WE NEED HELP’
The Texas visit was Biden’s third presidential trip to a mass shooting site, including an excursion earlier this month to Buffalo, New York, where a gunman had killed 10 Black people at a grocery store.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican who opposes new gun restrictions, and other local officials accompanied Biden on his visit to the school on Sunday.
“We need help, Governor Abbott,” some in the crowd yelled as Biden arrived. “Shame on you, Abbott.”
Others shouted their thanks to Biden.
Asked if she had a message for the president, 11-year-old Bella Barboza, who was friends with one of the victims, said she was now scared to go to school and urged change.
“This world is not a good place for children to grow up in,” she said.
Ben Gonzalez, a life-long Uvalde resident and father of four, was among those at the school memorial site on Sunday calling on leaders to help and saying Democrats and Republicans need to work together.
“Yes, we need new gun laws. But we also need a focus on mental health. There is not just one answer to this problem,” he told Reuters.
White House aides and close allies say Biden is unlikely to wade into specific proposals or take executive action on firearms to avoid disrupting delicate negotiations in the divided Senate.
Democrats in the Senate also dialed down the rhetoric as negotiations continued during the chamber’s Memorial Day holiday recess this week.
“We’ve got to be realistic about what we can achieve,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday. Durbin’s fellow Democrats narrowly control the 50-50 split Senate but need 60 votes to pass most legislation.
Leading Republicans like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, former President Donald Trump and Abbott have rejected calls for new gun control measures and instead suggested investing in mental health care or tightening school security.
Ramos, a high school dropout, had no criminal record and no history of mental illness but had posted threatening messages on social media.
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — The Russian-battered eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk appeared to be on the brink of becoming another Mariupol on Monday as the mayor told The Associated Press that Russian troops have entered, power and communications have been cut and “the city has been completely ruined.”
Moscow seeks to capture all of Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region, and Sievierodonetsk is key to that. Fierce street fighting is underway in the city as Ukrainian defenders are trying to push the Russians out, Mayor Oleksandr Striuk told the AP in a phone interview. Russian troops have advanced a few blocks toward the city center, he said.
“The number of victims is rising every hour, but we are unable to count the dead and the wounded amid the street fighting,” the mayor added. He said 12,000-13,000 civilians left in the city that once held more than 100,000 are sheltering in basements and bunkers to escape the Russian bombardment.
Russian forces stormed Sievierodonetsk after trying unsuccessfully to encircle it, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described the situation as “indescribably difficult.” A Russian artillery barrage has destroyed critical infrastructure and damaged 90% of buildings. The mayor has estimated that 1,500 civilians in the city have died since the war began, from Russian attacks as well as from a lack of medicine or treatment.
Sievierodonetsk, 143 kilometers (89 miles) south of the Russian border, has emerged in recent days as the epicenter of the Donbas fighting. Mariupol is the city on the Sea of Azov that spent nearly three months under Russian siege before the last Ukrainian fighters surrendered.
The Ukrainian military said Russian forces were reinforcing their positions on the northeastern and southeastern outskirts of Sievierodonetsk and bringing additional equipment and ammunition to press their offensive.
Luhansk regional Gov. Serhiy Haidai said the Russians also are pushing toward nearby Lysychansk. He said two civilians were killed and another five were wounded in the latest Russian shelling in the war.
Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk span the strategically important Siverskiy Donetsk River. They are the last major areas under Ukrainian control in Luhansk, which makes up the Donbas together with the adjacent Donetsk region.
The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, questioned the Kremlin’s strategy of assembling a huge military effort to take Sieverodonetsk, saying it was proving costly for Russia and would bring few returns.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told French TF1 television Sunday that Moscow’s “unconditional priority is the liberation of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” adding that Russia sees them as “independent states.” He also suggested other regions of Ukraine should be able to establish close ties with Russia.
The Ukrainian army reported heavy fighting around Donetsk, the regional capital, as well as Lyman to the north, a small city that serves as a key rail hub in the region. “The enemy is reinforcing its units,” the Ukrainian armed forces’ General Staff said. “It is trying to gain a foothold in the area.”
Authorities in a Russia-backed separatist region said at least five civilians were killed in the latest Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk city including a 13-year-old boy.
Zelenskyy on Monday will address European Union leaders gathering in a new show of solidarity with Ukraine amid divisions over whether to target Russian oil in a new series of sanctions. He has repeatedly demanded that the EU target Russia’s lucrative energy sector and deprive Moscow of billions of dollars each day in supply payments.
Zelenskyy on Sunday visited soldiers in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, where Ukrainian fighters pushed Russian forces back from nearby positions several weeks ago. Russia has kept up bombardment of the northeastern city, and explosions could be heard shortly after Zelenskyy’s visit. Shelling and airstrikes have destroyed more than 2,000 apartment buildings since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, according to the regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov.
In the wider Kharkiv region, Russian troops still held about one-third of the territory, Zelenskyy said.
Russian pressure also continued in the south on Monday. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said an artillery strike on the shipyard in the southern port of Mykolaiv destroyed Ukrainian armored vehicles parked on its territory.
In the Kherson region, the Russia-installed deputy head of the regional administration, Kirill Stremousov, told Russia’s Tass state news agency that grain from last year’s harvest is being delivered to Russian buyers, adding that “obviously there is a lot of grain here.” Ukraine has accused Russia of looting grain from territories its forces hold, and the U.S. has alleged Moscow is jeopardizing global food supplies by preventing Ukraine from exporting its harvest.
In Mariupol on Sunday, an aide to its Ukrainian mayor alleged that after Russia’s forces gained complete control of the city, they piled the bodies of dead people inside a supermarket. Petro Andryushchenko, posted a photo on the Telegram messaging app showing bodies stacked alongside closed supermarket counters. It wasn’t immediately possible to verify his claim.
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Yuras Karmanau reported from Lviv. AP journalists around the world contributed to this report.
Hurricane Agatha was expected to fall apart over the mountains of Mexico, but its remnants could emerge in the Gulf of Mexico, where they would have a relatively low chance of becoming the Atlantic basin’s first named storm of 2022.
If that happens, it was too early to tell if the U.S. would be affected.
“For us in South Florida, it’s still kind of hard to know if there will be any impacts from any of the remnants and Agatha,” said Robert Garcia, senior meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
After moving over the mountains of southern Mexico, Agatha is expected to dissipate by around Wednesday morning, said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.
“Agatha would have to cross over some pretty mountainous terrain in Mexico, so it may not survive clear into the Gulf,” Garcia said.
Remnants of Hurricane Agatha, seen here over the Yucatan Peninsula, have a 30% chance of developing into a tropical storm later this week, according to meterologists at the National Hurricane Center. It’s still too early to tell what impacts it may have on Florida, if any. (National Hurricane Center / Courtesy)
After that, a broad area of low pressure, which would include Agatha’s leftovers, is expected to emerge by the middle of next week in the southwest Gulf of Mexico, where it could gradually develop and drift eastward toward South Florida, forecasters said.
That broad area of low pressure has been given a 30% chance of development over the next five days.
Agatha’s maximum sustained winds increased to 110 mph Sunday afternoon, up from 75 mph earlier in the day, making ita strong Category 2 hurricane.
As of about 5 p.m., Sunday,Agatha was about 185 miles southwest of Mexico’s southeast coast, moving northeast at about 1 mph, and bringing hurricane warnings and watches with it to the Mexican coast.
The water between Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba’s western tip, which extends north into the Gulf of Mexico and then to the Florida Straits, is especially warm for this time of year, hurricane experts say.
Warm water is fuel for tropical system development.
Hurricane Agatha, located in the eastern Pacific, is expected to make landfall in mountainous southeastern Mexico. After that Agatha, or its remnants, could emerge in the Gulf of Mexico and head toward South Florida. (National Hurricane Center / Courtesy)
If Agatha, a Pacific hurricane, were to fully cross over Mexico and continue intact through to the Gulf, it would retain its name, Feltgen said.
But if a new named storm from those Agatha remnants forms in the Gulf of Mexico, it would get a new name from the Atlantic hurricane basin list. That name would be “Alex.”
The Gulf of Mexico, along with the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, are all part of the Atlantic hurricane basin.
The Justice Department announced Sunday that it will conduct a critical incident review of the response by law enforcement to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
The review, which is being undertaken at the behest of Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, is tasked with providing “an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events,” Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said in a statement.
McLaughlin in a statement Sunday night thanked the Justice Department for accepting his request, adding “I trust the assessment will be fair, transparent and independent.”
Authorities in Texas spent three days providing often conflicting and incomplete information about the 90 minutes that elapsed between the time the gunman entered the school and when U.S. Border Patrol agents unlocked the classroom door and killed him. Law enforcement officers from local, state and federal entities responded to the Uvalde shooting,
Nearly 20 officers were standing in the hallway outside the classrooms during the attack on Robb Elementary School for over 45 minutes before agents used a master key to open a door and confront the gunman, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said at a news conference Friday.
Children run from the scene of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022.
Pete Luna/Uvalde Leader-News
The on-site commander “was convinced at the time that there was no more threat to the children and that the subject was barricaded and that they had time to organize” to get into the classroom, McCraw said.
“Of course it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision,” McCraw told reporters.
Earlier Sunday, Rep. Val Demings, who was the Orlando police chief before she was elected to Congress, favored a federal investigation to determine what went wrong in the Uvalde response.
“Since there were so many agencies involved on the ground, it’s important that we know what role every agency played,” she told “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan. “It’s important that we know, was there any discussion about going in, those 19 offices who we’re told were in the hallway, were they any discussion between other commanders from other departments? We must know the answers to those questions. And I think a federal investigation is certainly in order.”
Uvalde County Commissioner Ronald Garza welcomed the idea of a federal investigation when he was asked about it hours before it was announced. “I think we need to learn more. As tragic as this may seem, we need to learn from this, you know, and parents deserve answers,” he told Brennan on “Face the Nation.”
Once the Justice Department concludes the review, it will publish a report with its findings.
Paul Pelosi was arrested before midnight on Saturday in Napa County and was sent to jail on two counts – driving under the influence and driving with a blood alcohol content level of 0.08 or higher. The incident was first reported by TMZ, citing publicly available arrest records.
Both are misdemeanours. Mr Pelosi’s bail for the two charges was set at $5,000.
Spokesman Drew Hammill said, “the Speaker will not be commenting on this private matter which occurred while she was on the East Coast”.
Mr Pelosi and his wife have been maried for nearly 60 years. The speaker remained across the country on Sunday, where she delivered a commencement address at Brown University. She did not mention her husband’s arrest, according to The Hill.
The speaker’s husband was previously under scrutiny due to lucrative stock trades he has made while his wife remains one of the most powerful people in Washington. A growing tide of government ethics hawks, including some members of Congress, are calling for the practice of allowing members of Congress or their spouses to trade stocks to be ended.
Ms Pelosi herself does not drink, according to family members and her chief spokesman. That factoid about the speaker came to light in March of this year when freshman Congressman Madison Cawthorn, who this month lost his own primary battle, accused her of being drunk at an event.
Jail records in Napa County, California indicated that Mr Pelosi was booked into jail just after 4am, and released around 7am.
The arrest of a spouse for DUI in an election year is the furthest thing from an ideal development for any politician, let alone a prominent one, but Ms Pelosi is not considered to be in electoral danger given that she faces no real competitive primary opponents and resides in a deep blue district. California’s primary elections are set to occur one week from Tuesday.
(CNN)The Justice Department announced Sunday it will conduct a review of the law enforcement response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, Eric Levenson, Virginia Langmaid, Shimon Prokupecz, Nora Neus, Kevin Liptak, Arlette Saenz and Devan Cole contributed to this report.
“I can’t say for certain, but I can tell you, I sense a different feeling among my colleagues after Uvalde,” Durbin said. “Of course, 10 years ago, it was Sandy Hook, and Parkland, and so many other instances.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was heckled by mourners Sunday during a visit to the Texas school where 19 children and two teachers were killed.
“Abbott is a son of a b—h,” said Aracely Villalpando, 59, of Fort Worth.
“It’s awful — he’s not doing anything about gun laws and wants everyone to own a gun,” she said. “A lot of people like guns, and that’s OK, but how can you sell a military rifle to the public?”
Salvador Ramos, 18, entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday carrying an AR-15-style assault rifle and killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers.
Villalpando said US gun laws must be changed now — and that politicians cannot “play around for months and years.”
Abbott, a Republican, visited the school’s makeshift memorial outside as President Biden and first lady Jill Biden also paid their respects there.
The tragedy has been compounded by the fact that police waited 90 minutes after being called to the scene to enter the school — even though children were phoning 911 pleading for help as shots rang out.
Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Peter Arredondo has come under fire from all sides over his handling of the bloody disaster.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott visits a memorial at Robb Elementary School.REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstThe tragedy has been compounded by the fact that police waited 90 minutes after being called to the scene to enter the school.AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills
“I am very angry with Pete Arredondo. If police acted faster, there would not have been so many children taken,” resident Rita Ortiz of Uvalde said outside the school Sunday.
Ortiz, 53, whose children and grandchildren have all attended Robb Elementary, said her 6-year-old granddaughter will not attend the school as planned next year because the family cannot trust district police to keep the students safe.
“If they couldn’t save those kids, why would I rely on them to protect my granddaughter?” she said. “I don’t know what we’ll do with [granddaughter] Scarlett, home-school, maybe.”
People yell at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as he arrives with President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden to pay their respects at a makeshift memorial.CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty ImagesSome Uvalde residents booed Gov. Abbott as he arrives at the memorial outside Robb Elementary School.AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills
Diane Martinez, 48, said the most ”devastating part” is the police officers waiting outside the classroom instead of going “inside to help the children.”
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The Justice Department said Sunday it will review the law enforcement response to the Texas school shooting, an unusual federal look back prompted by questions about the shifting and at times contradictory information from authorities that have enraged a community in shock and sorrow.
Department spokesman Anthony Coley said the review would be conducted in a fair, impartial and independent manner and the findings would be made public. The announcement came as President Joe Biden was visiting Uvalde, where he and first lady Jill Biden paid their respects at a memorial to the 19 students and two teachers killed at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday.
The goal of the review, which the mayor requested, is “to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and response that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events,” Coley said in a statement.
Handling the review is the department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. It was not immediately clear how the review would be conducted, whether law enforcement officials could be compelled to cooperate in the review and when it might be completed.
Such a review is somewhat rare and most after-action reports that come after a mass shooting are generally compiled by local law enforcement agencies or outside groups. The Justice Department conducted similar reviews after 14 people were killed in a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, in 2015, and after the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the deadliest attack on the LGBTQ community in U.S. history that left 49 people dead and 53 people wounded.
The frustration, anger and questions about the response from police grew deeper on Friday after authorities revealed that despite repeated 911 calls from students and teachers, the school district’s police chief had told more than a dozen officers to wait in a school hallway. Officials said he believed the suspect was barricaded inside adjoining classrooms and that there was no longer an active attack.
The revelation caused more grief and raised new questions about whether more lives were lost because officers did not act faster to stop the gunman, who was ultimately killed by Border Patrol tactical officers.
Biden has not spoken publicly about the police response to the shooting.
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Balsamo reported from Washington.
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More on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings
MEXICO CITY — The first hurricane of the season formed off Mexico’s southern Pacific coast on Sunday and rapidly gained power ahead of an expected strike along a stretch of tourist beaches and fishing towns.
Hurricane Agatha could make landfall at close to major hurricane force on Monday in the area near Puerto Escondido and Puerto Angel in the southern state of Oaxaca — a region that includes the laid-back tourist resorts of Huatulco, Mazunte and Zipolite.
Around midday Sunday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said the recently formed hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph) and it was centered about 195 miles (315 kilometers) west-southwest of Puerto Angel. It was heading to the north at 2 mph (4 kph).
A hurricane warning was in effect between the port of Salina Cruz and the Lagunas de Chacahua.
The civil defense office in Oaxaca said the hurricane’s outer bands were already hitting the coast. The office published photos of fishermen hauling their boats up on beaches to protect them from the storm.
The government’s Mexican Turtle Center — a former slaughterhouse turned conservation center in Mazunte — announced it was closed to visitors until further notice because of the hurricane.
The Hurricane Center warned of dangerous costal flooding, as well as large and destructive waves near where Agatha makes landfall and destructive waves.
The storm was expected to bring 10 to 16 inches (250 to 400 millimeters) of rain to parts of Oaxaca state — with isolated maximums of 20 inches (500 millimeters) — posing the threat of flash flooding and mudslides.
Because the storm’s current path would carry it over the narrow waist of Mexico’s isthmus, the center said there was a chance the storm’s remnants could reemerge over the Gulf of Mexico.
In northern Guatemala, a woman and her six children died Saturday when a landslide hit their home, but the accident did not appear to be related to Agatha.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is investigating after multiple people were shot attending an event in Taft.
Agents are investigating after eight people are shot at an outdoor festival in Taft. At this time, there is one person deceased and seven injured, including two juveniles.
The shooting occurred at an annual Memorial Day event with 1,500 people in attendance. The festival occurred at the Old City Square.
Witnesses said just after midnight, there was an argument and gunfire erupted.
The Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office was in attendance at the event and immediately rendered aid to the victims.
At this time, there are no suspects in custody.
Anyone who witnessed the shooting should contact the OSBI at (800) 522-8017 or email tips@osbi.ok.gov.
An activist confronted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a Houston restaurant on Friday night in a testy exchange after the lawmaker delivered a speech at the National Rifle Association (NRA) convention blaming violent video games, social media and other factors besides guns for mass shootings in the U.S.
The activist appears at first to get into a civil debate with Cruz about expanding background checks and reducing the number of firearms in America, according to a video shared by Indivisible Houston, a liberal political advocacy organization.
After the activist, later identified as Indivisible Houston board member Benjamin Hernandez, gets louder as he addresses his points, a security guard intervenes and separates the man from Cruz.
“It is harder when there are more guns to stop gun violence,” Hernandez says from behind the arms of the guard. “It is not ignorance. We are in this country, and there are guns everywhere. … Why is it so hard?”
More security arrives while the man screams, “Nineteen children died!” and “That’s on your hands, Ted Cruz!”
The incident comes days after a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where authorities say a gunman shot and killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School with a semi-automatic rifle similar to an AR-15.
Republicans, including Cruz, have decried the shooting but have largely stuck to talking points about tackling mental health and other societal factors rather than reducing the amount of guns in the nation, which exceeds the amount of people living in the country.
On Friday, Cruz appeared at the NRA rally in Houston, just 300 miles from Uvalde, and said that “what stops armed bad guys is armed good guys.”
Hundreds rallied at the NRA convention, with many gun control activists calling for the weekend’s events, which also included a speech from former President Trump, to be called off after the Texas shooting.
Gun control activists say they want what they describe as commonsense reforms such as universal background checks, expanded red flag laws, and limits or bans on assault rifles and semiautomatic rifles.
Another video on YouTube shows Hernandez approaching Cruz initially to take a picture with the senator before engaging him in a debate, starting with a plea for background checks.
“What about background checks?” he asks.
“You don’t want to listen,” Cruz says before explaining that laws proposed by Democrats would not stop the shootings.
“We can make it harder for people to get guns,” Hernandez responds.
CASPER, Wyo. — DONALD TRUMP has a new target for political attacks and scapegoating: transgender people.
Trump spoke for over 90 minutes at the Ford Wyoming Center in Casper on Saturday. It was ostensibly a speech in support of HARRIET HAGEMAN, his hand-picked candidate to take out Rep. LIZ CHENEY (R-Wyo.) in what Trump described here as “the most important election” of 2022 — and one that comes after a string of embarrassing primary defeats for Trump’s picks in Nebraska, Idaho, Georgia and North Carolina.
Trump meandered into issues far afield from the Wyoming race. In fact, if you haven’t tuned in lately, little has changed at a Trump rally. The former president appears to have put put on some weight, but he still looks younger than his 75 years, and the familiar mix of exaggerations, lies, sometimes hilarious mockery, dark conspiracies, personal grievances, perplexing asides, stream of consciousness riffs — all delivered in his uniform of a blue suit and long red tie — remains unchanged.
How much the event benefited Hageman was unclear. The parking lot was filled with license plates from Idaho, South Dakota, Montana, Colorado and Utah. On the security lines and in the hall, fans costumed in red ties, bedazzled MAGA dresses and at least one Trump-inspired catsuit traded notes on how many Trump rallies they’ve attended across the country.
Numerous non-Wyoming MAGA celebrities, such as Rep. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-Colo.), who appeared before Trump, repeatedly pronounced Hageman’s name incorrectly.
As his recent losses make clear, Trump seems to understand now that people come to see him, and may ignore whatever candidate he’s hawking that day. “What’s more fun than a Trump rally?” he asked. The crowd cheered.
After an hour of Trump delivering many familiar hits — on Russia, impeachment, Jan. 6, the 2020 election, how he told NATO members he would not defend them if they didn’t “pay,” trade with China, CHUCK TODD’S alleged lack of sleep, the relative merits of the journalists CHRIS WALLACE and his father MIKE, his conversations with the Taliban, the Durham investigation, and how, “sadly,” White House physician-turned-congressional candidate RONNY JACKSON knows Trump’s body better than MELANIA does — Trump turned his attention to a newer obsession.
“No teacher should ever be allowed to teach transgender to our children without parental consent,” he said, just as some of the MAGA faithful started to trickle out. “Can you imagine?”
On the perimeter of the arena, some attendees headed for their cars stopped and began listening again on an outside monitor. Trump briefly got distracted when he caught a glimpse of himself on a video screen and noticed his hair was thinning in the back.
But he then returned to the subject.
“We will save our kids and we will also keep men the hell out of women’s sports. Is that OK?” he said, using what’s become a common GOP refrain. He continued with an animated tale about a female swimmer about to start a race who turned and noticed a new opponent, a “huge person who was a guy recently.”
Trump paused for effect and then reflected on the fraught nature of his commentary. “See? I’m politically correct, I said ‘recently,’ They can’t get me,” he said. “You have to be very careful, this is a hornet’s nest.”
He continued. He said the trans woman set a new record that would stand until “some guy comes along and breaks it again.” He pantomimed his way through a story mocking trans women in weightlifting competitions. He imagined himself as a women’s basketball team coach recruiting players, such as LEBRON JAMES: “Did you ever have any thoughts, LeBron, about one day becoming a woman?”
He congratulated himself. “Everybody’s afraid of not being politically correct,” he said. “I’m the only one that talks about it.”
These long riffs mocking trans athletes were received with thunderous applause. The only other objects of derision that tickled the crowd with similar enthusiasm were mentions of undocumented immigrants or Cheney and the appearance of House Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY, who was booed when he showed up in a video at the rally.
Trump is wrong that he’s the only one in politics caricaturing trans people for political benefit. Transgender women have been allowed to compete in women’s categories in the Olympics since 2003 and the NCAA since 2010. Yet Republicans say new laws are needed to protect women’s sports and GOP candidates have been using Trump-like language in campaigns and policy around the country for years.
It’s having an impact. Here in Wyoming last week, a local school board voted to remove sexual orientation and gender identity from its non-discrimination code.
Trump is like a standup comedian. He uses rallies, especially in the offseason, to work on material. He tests the reaction among his diehard fans and watches the mainstream media’s coverage. He then rewrites the lines, calibrating them for maximum effect inside the arena and minimal blowback outside of it. You can tell he believes he’s onto something with his mocking of trans people.
There is a cynical strategy at work here. Targeting marginalized groups for ridicule forces more responsible actors to stand up for them. As Democrats have learned, Trump’s goal is to get them to spend their time outraged and defending the targets of his attacks rather than talking about their own message.
This dynamic creates a built-in political advantage to any party that no longer sees it as taboo to scapegoat certain groups. Trump, of course, knows this and he has found a new target for 2022 — and perhaps beyond.
— Sen. CHRIS MURPHY (D-Conn.) on gun safety legislation negotiations, on ABC’s “This Week”: “I’m at the table in a more significant way right now with Republicans and Democrats than ever before. … Every single time after one of these mass shootings, there’s talks in Washington, and they never succeed. But there are more Republicans interested in talking about finding a path forward this time than I have ever seen since Sandy Hook.” More from David Cohen
— Texas Democratic state Sen. ROLAND GUTIERREZ, who represents Uvalde, on how hopeful he is for legislative changes, on “State of the Union”: “If I do nothing for the rest of my career but yell at Greg Abbott and others that are not willing to listen, then that’s what I’m going to do. We must have change. I have spent time with many of these families. And this is just heartbreaking. I just cannot do this anymore. It is heartbreaking. No family should go through what these people are going through.”
— Rep. MO BROOKS (R-Ala.) on whether he would testify before the Jan. 6 select committee, on “Fox News Sunday”: “It’s got to be something that you at Fox News can have a camera on so that the American people can see it. … OK, it’s got to be in public. It’s got to be congressman to congressman. It’s got to be limited to issues associated with Jan. 6 and it has to be after this Senate primary is over with. I don’t want this witch hunt committee, NANCY PELOSI, trying to interfere with a Republican primary election for the United States Senate in Alabama.”
BIDEN’S SUNDAY (all times Eastern):
— 12 p.m.: The president and first lady JILL BIDEN will arrive in Uvalde, Texas.
— 12:30 p.m.: The Bidens will pay respects to the victims at the memorial site at Robb Elementary School.
— 1 p.m.: The Bidens will attend mass.
— 2:30 p.m.: The Bidens will meet with the families of victims and survivors.
— 6:05 p.m.: The Bidens will meet with first responders.
— 7 p.m.: The Bidens will depart Uvalde to return to New Castle, Del., where they are scheduled to arrive at 11 p.m.
VP KAMALA HARRIS’ SUNDAY — The VP has nothing on her public schedule.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
PLAYBOOK READS
9 (GIVE OR TAKE) STORIES YOU SHOULD BE READING …
1. THE UVALDE TIMELINE: WaPo, NYT and CNN have harrowing recountings of the shooting at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday — detailing the events inside and outside the building minute by minute as they unfolded. They’re well worth your time, though we will warn: the details can be very difficult to read.
— WaPo’s Tim Craig, Hannah Allam, Annie Gowen and Mark Berman write: “Only now, a more reliable chronology is emerging through official statements, 911 logs, social media posts, and interviews with survivors and witnesses. The revelations tell a story of institutional failure at the expense of unprotected children. Here in Uvalde, there is little expectation that correcting the record will lead to any real policy change, especially with hyperpartisan midterm elections looming.”
— Related read: “‘Ariely is in there,’” by WaPo’s Peter Jamison: “One daughter left Robb Elementary early. Another was trapped inside the school. A mother’s desperate search, and a family’s struggle to move forward.”
2. HOW GUNS GET SOLD: In the wake of the shooting, more attention is now turning to the manufacturer of the gun, Georgia-based Daniel Defense, that the shooter used: “The company was an early adopter of a direct-to-consumer business model that aimed to make buying military gear as simple as ordering from Amazon, enticing customers with ‘adventure now, pay later’ installment plans that make expensive weaponry more affordable,” NYT’s David Yaffe-Bellany and Jessica Silver-Greenberg write.
3. HISTORY LESSON: After the 2018 Parkland, Fla., mass shooting, Republicans in the state bucked the gun lobby and did the unexpected to pass meaningful gun safety legislation. “In a different political reality, what worked in Florida — a huge center-right state that is often seen as a bellwether of national political trends — might well be seen as a template for a national compromise to address mass acts of gun violence, such as Tuesday’s shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Yet it’s not. Interviews this week with Republican senators revealed little stomach for the sort of sprawling bill that Florida Republicans passed in 2018,” WaPo’s Mike DeBonis writes.
4. GEORGIA ON MY MIND: Now that HERSCHEL WALKER has officially picked up the GOP nomination in the closely watched Georgia Senate race, both parties are watching everything the candidate says in much harsher light. And some of his comments, particularly on gun safety legislation, since the primary have made Republicans concerned — and given Democrats an opening to go after him. “If his runaway primary victory offered a glimpse at his promise as a Senate candidate, then Walker’s answer on guns was a fresh reminder of his risks as GOP nominee in one of the Senate’s most pivotal races,” Brittany Gibson writes.
5. FAMILY BUSINESS: Sen. BOB MENENDEZ (D-N.J.) is playing favorites. “[W]ith his old ally Rep. ALBIO SIRES (D-NJ) retiring this year from the congressional district encompassing the county’s major population centers — the district the senator himself represented between 1993 and 2006 — Menendez appears to have decided his son and namesake must replace him. And the Democratic Party appears to have been doing his bidding,” The Daily Beast’s William Bredderman reports.
6. CHURCH AND STATE:AP’s Peter Smith and Deepa Bharath are up with a story this morning examining the rise of Christian nationalism on the campaign trail. Most recently, this trend was on display in DOUG MASTRIANO’s victory in the Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial primary (though he rejects the label). So what is it? Experts say “Christian nationalism” is “often accompanied by a belief that God has destined America, like the biblical Israel, for a special role in history, and that it will receive divine blessing or judgment depending on its obedience. That often overlaps with the conservative Christian political agenda, including opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and transgender rights.”
7. THE STEP BACK: “What is America’s end-game for the war in Ukraine?” by FT’s Felicia Schwartz in Washington and Amy Kazmin in Rome: “[B]ehind the confident rhetoric, there is much less clarity about what Washington actually believes can and should happen in Ukraine. There is little detail about what a strategic defeat for Russia would actually look like or what sort of territorial settlement the US might end up encouraging the Ukrainians to accept.”
9. THE NEW GOP: When Rep. LOUIE GOHMERT (R-Texas) came to Congress, he was a bit of an outlier, staking out far-right positions that many of the establishment in the party wouldn’t touch. Now, Gohmert has more than a few fellow far-right colleagues — but he and a handful of others are on their way out. And the races to succeed them will “help determine whether [Rep. MARJORIE TAYLOR] GREENE ends up with more agitator allies or if their numbers will be small enough that GOP leaders can avoid kowtowing to their purity demands,” WaPo’s Paul Kane writes. “So far this spring, the GOP’s governing wing has had some success.”
PLAYBOOKERS
A member of Indivisible Houston confronted Ted Cruz at dinner on Friday night over gun safety reform after pretending to pose for a photo with the senator. After a brief back-and-forth, security escorted the man out of the restaurant.
The Lincoln Memorial is celebrating its 100th birthday this weekend, though WaPo writes that D.C.’s most popular monument still “beckons a nation divided.”
MEDIA MOVE — Julianna Goldman is now a contributing political columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. She is also the founder of women’s empowerment platform MamaDen and is a longtime CBS News and Bloomberg correspondent.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) … USA Today’s Francesca Chambers … Philip Klein … State Department’s Lee Satterfield … FP1 Strategies’ Jon Conradi … Matthew Dowd … NRSC’s Reilly Knecht … Todd Flournoy … Instagram’s Dayna Geldwert … The Forward’s Jacob Kornbluh … Bri Gillis … Alex Ford of Halcyon Strategy … Annette Guarisco Fildes … Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson … Nucor’s Eileen Bradner … Mary Ryan Douglass … NPR’s Terence Samuel … Jacob Alderman … former Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Tom Coleman (R-Mo.) … Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin
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Send Playbookers tips to [email protected] or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike Zapler, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Setota Hailemariam and Bethany Irvine.
Correction: Saturday’s Playbook misstated Jason Morris’ name.
UVALDE, Texas, May 29 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden flew to the Texas town of Uvalde on Sunday to comfort families ripped apart by the worst U.S. school shooting in a decade as the public demands answers about why local police failed to act swiftly.
There was mounting anger over the decision by local law enforcement agencies in Uvalde to allow the shooter to remain in a classroom for nearly an hour while officers waited in the hallway and children inside the room made panicked 911 calls for help. read more
Biden will meet with victims’ families, survivors and first responders, attend a church service and visit a memorial erected at the Robb Elementary School where the gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.
“Too much violence, too much fear, too much grief,” Biden told graduates in a commencement speech on Saturday at the University of Delaware. “We cannot outlaw tragedy, I know, but we can make America safer. We can finally do what we have to do to protect the lives of the people and of our children.”
Biden, a Democrat, has repeatedly called for major changes to America’s gun laws but has been powerless to stop mass shootings or convince Republicans that stricter controls could stem the carnage.
The Texas visit will be his third presidential trip to a mass shooting site, including earlier this month when he visited Buffalo, New York, after a gunman killed 10 Black people in a Saturday afternoon attack at a grocery store.
The Uvalde shooting has once again put gun control at the top of the nation’s agenda, months ahead of the November midterm elections, with supporters of stronger gun laws arguing that the latest bloodshed represents a tipping point.
“The president has a real opportunity. The country is desperately asking for a leader to stop the slaughter from gun violence,” said Igor Volsky, executive director of Guns Down America.
Volsky urged Biden to enlist a senior official to tackle the country’s gun problem and pressure Congress to pass meaningful gun reform, saying Biden had promised to be a deal maker and to tackle gun violence.
‘WEAPON OF WAR’
Vice President Kamala Harris called for a ban on assault-style weapons during a trip to Buffalo on Saturday, saying that in the wake of the two back-to-back mass shootings such arms are “a weapon of war” with “no place in a civil society.”
White House aides and close allies say Biden is unlikely to wade into specific policy proposals to avoid disrupting delicate gun control negotiations in the divided Senate.
He is also unlikely to take executive action to crack down on firearms because that could send Republican lawmakers otherwise open to negotiations back to their corners.
Senate Democrats have also dialed down the rhetoric as negotiations continued during the chamber’s Memorial Day holiday recess this week.
“We’ve got to be realistic about what we can achieve,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday. Durbin’s fellow Democrats narrowly control the 50-50 split Senate but need 60 votes to pass most legislation.
Leading Republicans like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and former President Donald Trump have rejected calls for new gun control measures and instead suggested investing in mental health care or tightening security at the nation’s schools.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, denied that newly enacted Texas gun laws, including a controversial measure removing licensing requirements for carrying a concealed weapon, had “any relevancy” to Tuesday’s bloodshed.
He suggested state lawmakers focus renewed attention on addressing mental illness.
Vice President Kamala Harris attended the funeral of Ruth Whitfield, 86, one of 10 people killed at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store May 14.
Vice President Kamala Harris called for a ban on “assault weapons” on Saturday after she spoke at the funeral of a woman killed in the Buffalo, New York grocery store mass shooting earlier this month.
She called the firearm a “weapon of war” that has “no place in civil society.”
“We are not sitting around waiting to figure out what the solution looks like. You know, we’re not looking for a vaccine. We know what works on this,” she told reporters outside of Air Force Two at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, referring to the series of mass shootings that have plagued the U.S. “Let’s have an assault weapons ban.”
The vice president had spoken at the funeral for Ruth Whitfield, 86, one of 10 Black people killed at a Tops supermarket on May 14 by a self-proclaimed White supremacist. At Whitfield’s service, Harris said the U.S. is experiencing an “epidemic of hate.”
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks alongside the Rev. Al Sharpton during a memorial service for Ruth Whitfield, a victim of the Buffalo supermarket shooting, at Mt. Olive Baptist Church, Saturday, May 28, 2022, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Harris said at the funeral that Scripture teaches about strength, and that strength is based on who “you lift up” rather than “who you beat down.”
“And it means then also, in that strength, understanding we will not allow small people to create fear in our communities that we will not be afraid to stand up for what is right, to speak up even when it may be difficult to hear and speak,” she said.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with members of the press before boarding Air Force Two at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, Saturday, May 28, 2022, in Buffalo, (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Though “assault weapons” is a broad term, Harris was certainly referring to guns like AR-15-style rifles used in both the May 14 Buffalo shooting and the Uvalde, Texas school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
A memorial is seen surrounding the Robb Elementary School sign following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 26, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
She told reporters before boarding the plane, “You know what an assault weapon is? You know how an assault weapon was designed? It was designed for a specific purpose – to kill a lot of human beings quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war with no place, no place in a civil society.”
**Related Video Above: How to talk to your kids after a school shooting.**
AUSTIN, Texas (WJW) — The funeral expenses for those who were killed in the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting Tuesday are taken care of, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said.
An anonymous donor reportedly paid $175,000 to go toward the funerals for the 19 children and two teachers killed in the massacre at Robb Elementary School.
“We appreciate that anonymous donor for his generosity,” Abbott said in a press conference Tuesday. “And we will ensure that those resources get into the right hands … No family who is suffering from incalculable heartbreak at this time will have to worry about a single cost with regard to anything concerning this travesty,” Abbott said.
The governor also made clear that anyone in Uvalde is eligible for free mental health care at this time.
The school shooting is one of the most deadly in American history. An investigation into what led to it taking 45-plus minutes for authorities to breach the classroom is ongoing.
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