Democrats have responded with anger and frustration over GOP efforts to stymie gun control legislation after a deadly shooting at a church school in Minneapolis this week.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, with his voice breaking from emotion, told Americans not to call for prayers in the wake of the shooting at Annunciation Catholic School: “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now, these kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school, they were in a church.”
Jen Psaki, former White House press secretary under Joe Biden, chimed in on X, telling Republicans, “Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does not end school shootings. prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.”
Republicans immediately took the mayor’s response and others from within his party as a means of pivoting off that topic towards familiar ground: accusing their opponents of being anti-Christian. Leading the charge was Vice President JD Vance, the administration’s chief culture warrior. Vance, on Thursday, attacked Democrats in a Fox News interview over their comments in the wake of the shooting. On cable news, the vice president positioned himself as the statesman resisting attacks and criticism from the “far left,” calling for action instead of prayers.
“Why does it have to be one or the other?” asked Vance, whose party has blocked everything but the most meager reforms to gun safety while an epidemic of seemingly mentally ill young people with violent tendencies end up with highly-powerful firearms, including assault rifles, and cause carnage in schools across the country.
“Why can’t you pray for the speedy recovery of these kids who literally got shot yesterday, while at the same time committing to making sure that this doesn’t happen again, or that this happens as infrequently as possible?” he continued. Congress has repeatedly failed to take up legislation to prevent school shootings and mass gun violence, with Republicans leading opposition dating back to the Sandy Hook era and beyond.
He leaned into vitriol towards the end of his comments, contending that “something very wrong” has gone on “inside [the] soul” of Democratic politicians, whom he claimed were unable to offer both sentiments at once in the wake of tragedy. But online was another story: Vance and a host of MAGA allies attacked Democrats in vicious, personal terms for essentially making the same argument as Vance — that merely condolences in the wake of tragedy were insufficient.
Instead, he and others accused Democrats of demeaning the concept of Christian prayer altogether — though no elected Democrats (or MSNBC hosts) were seen truly doing so.
“Why do you feel the need to attack other people for praying when kids were just killed praying?” the vice president tweeted at Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary and now an MSNBC host.
“Of all the weird left wing culture wars in the last few years, this is by far the most bizarre. ‘How dare you pray for innocent people in the midst of tragedy?!’” Vance wrote in a follow-up tweet, mischaracterizing the argument of his opponents.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, addressed Psaki’s comments and called them disrespectful to Christians at her daily press briefing.
“I saw the comments of Ms. Psaki and frankly I think they’re incredibly insensitive and disrespectful to the tens of millions of Americans of faith across this country who believe in the power of prayer, who believe that prayer works,” said Leavitt.
White House spokesman Steven Cheung was less subtle in his message to Psaki: “You are a disgusting human being.”
Christian author Brad Edwards, responding to Frey, wrote: “This isn’t just tired and exhausting, using the murder of children to virtue signal is profoundly selfish and wicked.”
Other conservatives, such as Donald Trump Jr. and Rep. Byron Donalds, who is running for governor in Florida, would go on to essentially blame Democrats for the attack itself, pointing to the identity of the suspected shooter.
“Jen Psaki is a hack trying to make a political point,” Donalds told Fox’s Laura Ingraham on Wednesday.
But the avalanche of rhetoric from the American right belies one reality: even with unified control of Congress and the White House, the Trump administration walked into office without a plan to end school shootings, and hasn’t identified even the root cause of gun violence in America’s schools.
