Fox News host Jessica Tarlov criticized the Trump administration for avoiding mentioning the apparent right-wing beliefs of Sunday’s church shooter in Michigan.
Authorities said 40-year-old Thomas Sanford drove his truck into the front door of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township, started shooting, and then set the building on fire. Sanford killed four people, and then was killed by officers at the scene.
A Google Maps street view from June shows a Trump sign outside Sanford’s nearby home. In a picture posted on social media in 2019, Sanford wore a Trump 2020 shirt with the line “Make Liberals Cry Again.” Additionally, Democratic consultant Mark Grebner said Sanford in 2020 signed a petition to outlaw an abortion procedure and in 2021 signed another to repeal Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s pandemic-related authority.
On The Five, Tarlov said that the public comments in this case by Donald Trump and other top administration officials differed from the aftermath of other shootings.
“If a leftist or someone had killed someone and had a Dark Brandon flag or a Biden-Harris flag, you don’t think that Kash Patel—that would’ve been the first thing he would’ve said?” Tarlov said, referring to the FBI Director, who last week posted a photo of an apparent anti-ICE message on a bullet casing after the Dallas detention center shooting.
“The hypocrisy is astounding,” she went on, adding moments later: “When the shoe is on the other foot and you can’t demonize the left for this one, they say nothing. ‘Oh, it was just about anti-Christian bias.’ It was a Christian, by the way, killing other Christians.”
Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after the shooting that it “appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America.” Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, wrote in a brief post on X: “Just an awful situation in Michigan. FBI is on the scene and the entire administration is monitoring things. Say a prayer for the victims and first responders.” Neither have since had anything to say on those social media platforms about the suspect’s support for Trump.
The White House did not immediately respond to a Daily Beast inquiry Monday.
Also on The Five, Tarlov addressed a study about “left-wing violence” that some on the right—like White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson—have misinterpreted in order to attack Democrats.
“The right was gleefully tweeted it, ignoring the fact that the right-wing violence was much larger than the left-wing violence, which is the truth about it,” Tarlov said, referring to new findings from the Center for Strategic & International Studies published by Axios.
Tarlov also addressed complaints from the right—and from Sen. John Fetterman—urging against calling others “fascists.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Trump himself, Tarlov reminded Fox viewers, have done so many times over.
But Jesse Watters claimed that his side doesn’t have a problem with rhetoric.
“We’re not inciting people to go kill Mormons, like you’re inciting people to attack ICE, like you’re inciting people to attack Republicans. That doesn’t happen. And if you look in the inner cities, ‘Democrats’ are slaughtering each other, day after day after day, and you don’t say anything about that,” he claimed.
“You asked this question, ‘Does the base want people to die?’” Watters went on, paraphrasing co-host Lawrence Jones’ prompt. ”Yeah! Did you see the poll where it was like 20 percent of Democrats said they believed in political assassinations? Did you watch the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk killing? I mean, everybody was clapping on campus!”
Watters may have been referring to a YouGov poll from Sept. 10—the day of Kirk’s murder—finding that a higher percentage of self-identified liberals than conservatives said that it can “sometimes be justified” for “citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals.” That question, however, did not mention assassinations specifically.
The post Fox Host Calls Out Team Trump ‘Hypocrisy’ Over MAGA Gunman appeared first on The Daily Beast.
