President Trump said on Monday that he would have ordered American flags to half-staff to honor Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota state representative who was gunned down along with her husband in their home this summer, if he had been “asked” to by the Democratic governor of her state.
Mr. Trump, in response to a question about whether the honor should have been extended in light of the tributes the White House has paid to Charlie Kirk, the assassinated conservative activist, initially said that he was not familiar with her, until the slain lawmaker was identified as a Democrat.
“Well, if the governor had asked me to do that, I would have done that, but the governor of Minnesota didn’t ask me,” Mr. Trump said, not identifying by name the governor, Tim Walz, who was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in the last election.
Mr. Trump has been casting blame entirely on the liberals who oppose him for political violence that has struck both Democrats and Republicans in recent years, as he continues to paint Mr. Kirk’s assassination last week as the work of the “radical left.”
Asked on Monday why he continued to cast the violence as only being from one side, Mr. Trump doubled down.
“I didn’t say it’s on one side,” he said. “But I say the radical left causes tremendous violence, and they seem to do it in a bigger way.”
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The post Trump Says He Would Have Lowered Flags for Slain Minnesota Lawmaker appeared first on New York Times.
