It's really hard to get shocked by Donald Trump's narcissism any more. But he managed to do it again today with his tweetstorm rage in advance of the Sunday shows.
So far, so typical. Name-calling, grandiosity, and your garden variety spin. Yadda yadda yadda.
But then Trump decided to go too far...
Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign - there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018
Catch that? Apparently, there's only a handful of FBI agents in the country and they're only capable of one thing at a time. Sorry, dead kids, if only they weren't focused on this Russian investigation hoax, you would still be alive.
Absolutely friggin' heinous and the least presidential statement I can imagine.
Frank Figliuzzi, Former Assistant Director For Counterintelligence at the FBI, can't quite believe what he's seeing coming from the head of law enforcement for the nation. "Let's distill down what that late night tweet really says. Some cheeseburger-induced coma after 11:00 p.m. last night, the president puts this squarely on FBI. Here's what he's telling parents of America: Hey, our gun violence problem would go away if the FBI would just leave me alone. That's what he's saying."
Being the Consoler in Chief in a moment of tragedy may be too much to expect from someone who shows every bit of the brain damage known as affluenza as anyone on this planet.
But Figliuzzi is prepared to refocus the discussion where it belongs: the failures of Donald Trump. "He's saying the FBI is spending too much time on the Russian threat and meanwhile, he is spending zero time addressing the gun violence threat."
He also puts to rest a trope that all sorts of conservatives have grasped to take the heat off their own complicity with the NRA: that the FBI ignored calls warning them about the alleged Parkland shooter, and adds a bit of information that I don't think has been generally known: The accused shooter had been visited by local police 39 times over the last seven years already.
"[Trump is] choosing to ignore the fact that the local police visited this guy 39 times in response to 911 calls. Social Services for the county had to do an assessment of this. Everyone in the school saw the warning signs and indicators." There's no question that this troubled man slipped through the cracks at multiple points. But for the President* of the United States to suggest that had the FBI sent out local law enforcement for a 40th time, that might have saved those teens is flatly disgusting.
