Sickening disrespect from Donald Trump
by digby
He hates America in so many ways:
We also have to come up with punishment that's far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now," Trump told reporters. "They'll go through court for years. And at the end, they'll be -- who knows what happens."
He added: "We need quick justice and we need strong justice -- much quicker and much stronger than we have right now. Because what we have right now is a joke and it's a laughing stock. And no wonder so much of this stuff takes place."
One prompted a sombre tone, quotation from scripture and prayer for unity. The other brought a barrage of tweets, peppered with capital letters and exclamation marks and bent on divisiveness and blame.
Donald Trump had sharply contrasting responses to the mass shooting in Las Vegas and the terrorist attack in New York that bookended the month of October.
The morning after Stephen Paddock fired hundreds of rifle rounds from his suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, killing 58 people at a country music concert, Trump was at his most presidential, stating from the diplomatic room at the White House: “In moments of tragedy and horror, America comes together as one – and it always has.”
But when it came to solutions, the president offered little more than looking at gun control laws “as time goes by”.
Eight people were killed and 11 wounded when motorist Sayfullo Saipov, 29, originally from Uzbekistan, allegedly ploughed a pickup truck down a crowded bike path along the Hudson river in Manhattan on Tuesday, before being shot by a police officer. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in New York since September 11 2001.
Trump rattled off several tweets in the immediate aftermath and, on Wednesday, went highly personal and political, raising the prospect of sending the suspect to Guantánamo Bay and taking aim at the Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and an immigration lottery programme he helped design.
“The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Program,’ a Chuck Schumer beauty,” the US president posted at 7.24am ET. “I want merit based.”
The Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have advocated that Saipov be held as an “enemy combatant” and taken to the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay. Asked about this possibility, Trump replied: “I would certainly consider that, yes. Send him to Gitmo. I would certainly consider that, yes.”
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said at a press briefing later on Wednesday: “The point he was making is that he supports – or would support that, but he wasn’t necessarily advocating for it,” she said.
Sanders added: “I believe we would consider this person to be an enemy combatant”.
Of the 775 detainees who have passed through Guantánamo, none of them have been arrested within the US for acts committed on US mainland soil.