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.
After offering sympathy and emotional support for the victims of the shooting in Perry, Iowa, and their families, Trump said at the event in Sioux Center: “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.
Friday’s remarks were not the first time in the last year that Trump has apparently tried to deflect from having a substantial conversation about gun violence in the US. During a speech in April 2023 to the National Rifle Association, Trump argued that the long history of deadly school shootings in the US is “not a gun problem”. He instead blamed the issue on Democrats, mental health issues, marijuana and the transgender community.
Trump’s recent comment on the Perry shooting was criticized by the Democratic Super Pac American Bridge.
“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,” the American Bridge presidential campaigns communication director, Brandon Weathersby, said in a statement on Trump’s comments. “This is beyond the pale, even for Trump.”
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.
Nonetheless, Trump dominates polling for the Republican presidential nomination this year.
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.
Police said they found an improvised explosive device during a search of the school while responding to the shooting.
Four of the wounded were students, two were faculty and one was the principal, who was reported to be in critical condition but – like the remaining victims – did not appear to be facing life-threatening injuries.
The shooting occurred shortly before classes started on the first day of school after the students’ holiday break.
