Trump: Hey Parents and Iowans, ‘Get Over the Shooting’

January 6, 2024

Donald Trump told an audience at a campaign event on Friday in Iowa to “get over” a deadly shooting at a high school in the state a day earlier.

“It’s just horrible – so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it. We have to move forward.”

Trump’s comments on the shooting that occurred about 36 hours earlier were the first he had made addressing the violence.

Trump’s recent comment on the Perry shooting was roundly criticized, “We knew Trump lacked empathy for others, but no one thought he could go this low and tell Iowans to simply ‘get over it’ as they grieve from a situation communities across the country know all too well,” said American Bridge presidential campaigns communication director Brandon Weathersby in a statement on Trump’s comments.

“This is beyond the pale.”

Trump has made several campaign stops in Iowa ahead of the Republican presidential primary caucuses on 15 January. He is seeking a second presidency despite facing 91 criminal charges for trying to subvert his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, illegally retaining government secrets after he left the Oval Office and illicit hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who has reported having a sexual encounter with Trump during an earlier time in his marriage to Melania Trump.

The former president has also grappled with civil litigation over his business practices and a rape allegation deemed “substantially true” by a judge.

The shooting in Perry killed one sixth grader and wounded seven others. Police identified the shooter as a 17-year-old student who attended high school at the targeted campus. The teen attacker died from a self-inflicted bullet wound, police said.