While most the country recognized that Donald Trump’s trips to El Paso and Dayton were massive failures, even the president’s own staff members are now admitting as much.
According to CNN, Trump is fuming over the coverage of his photo ops, and his aides are saying that the visits did not go well. They say the president is to blame for that.
More from the report:
While at least two top staffers publicly defended the President’s trip — with one longtime aide claiming he was treated like “a rock star” at the Dayton, Ohio, hospital — multiple staffers agreed behind the scenes that it wasn’t successful from the administration’s viewpoint. They conceded Trump spent too much time lashing out at local officials, who Trump criticized after they praised his interactions with patients but criticized his stance on guns.
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Trump was also unhappy with the visit. He fumed about the coverage on the long flight back to Washington, one person said, though he remained positive in public.
Trump filmed campaign ads, attacked opponents and bragged about crowd sizes
If there is one thing the American people can get behind, it’s a president of the United States – no matter his or her political party – working to unify the country after a national tragedy.
Trump was handed an opportunity to bring the country together and tone down the rhetoric, and he didn’t even try to take it.
Instead, within hours of his visits to both Dayton and El Paso, Trump was posting flashy campaign ads showing behind the scenes footage of his visits to hospitals, where victims of mass shootings were recovering.
In between the visits, Trump couldn’t help but pick up his phone and start trashing his political opponents on Twitter.
On Thursday, a new video surfaced of Trump – standing in a hospital room in El Paso – bragging about the size of his crowds and attacking 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke.
“That was some, that was some crowd,” Trump said in the video, according to CNN. “And we had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot, they said his crowd was wonderful.”
From top to bottom, Trump’s trips to console shooting victims were disastrous, and he has nobody to blame but himself.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
