Right wing violence hits church, White House scrambles
The David Pakman Show - September 29, 2025
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Over the weekend, a tragic shooting occurred at a Mormon church in Grand Blanc, Michigan, when 40-year-old Marine veteran Thomas Sanford drove a truck into the building, opened fire, and set it on fire, killing at least four people and wounding eight others before being killed by police. Sanford’s social media and public activities indicate strong right-wing beliefs, including support for Donald Trump, Turning Point USA, and anti-vaccine and anti-abortion positions. While investigators are still determining his precise motive, the incident highlights broader issues of mass shootings in the U.S.
Donald Trump’s response to the Michigan church shooting was notably restrained compared to his past rhetoric. In a Truth Social post, he condemned the violence and urged prayers for the victims while framing the incident as “another targeted attack on Christians in the United States.” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s White House press secretary, echoed this selective framing during a Fox News appearance. She described the Michigan shooting as a “targeted attack on Christians” while avoiding any mention of the shooter’s pro-Trump, anti-vaccine, and anti-abortion beliefs.
The shooting has sparked discussions about how right-wing narratives manipulate perceptions of political violence. Despite decades of data showing that most domestic political violence in the U.S. is right-wing, Trump has promoted the notion that left-wing violence is surging in 2025. Articles like Axios’s coverage superficially suggest a spike in left-wing attacks, but the underlying CSIS data show right-wing incidents remain far more numerous and lethal.
Trump is also facing criticism from his former White House lawyer, Ty Cobb, who publicly condemned his efforts to rewrite history and pursue politically motivated actions, including the indictment of James Comey. Cobb emphasized Trump’s past transgressions, including inciting the January 6 insurrection and mishandling classified documents, labeling the Comey case unconstitutional and authoritarian.
Additionally, Trump posted a fake AI-generated video promoting “medbeds,” futuristic pods claiming to cure disease and reverse aging, which went viral to millions before being deleted. These incidents highlight the contradictions, unintended consequences, and dangers of misinformation associated with Trump’s messaging.
Finally, Rahm Emanuel, former US Ambassador to Japan, former Chicago mayor, and former Obama Chief of Staff, joins us to discuss his potential 2028 message centered on affordability, education, and health care. He argues both parties have failed working families and calls for pragmatism over culture wars.
On today’s bonus show:
Mayor Eric Adams drops out of the New York City mayoral race after polling in the single digits. Missouri Republicans approve new congressional maps likely to net the GOP one more House seat. And rising housing costs are fueling a trend of friends purchasing homes together.
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Donald Trump has perfected the art of selective outrage. When violence stains America’s streets, he wastes no time inventing culprits — “radical leftists,” Democrats, the phantom bogeyman called “Antifa.” He roars with fury when it serves him. But when the blood is spilled by one of his own — a pro-Trump, anti-vaccine, anti-abortion extremist who opened fire in a Michigan church — his roar collapses into a whisper.
His Truth Social statement was telling: prayers for victims, solemn words about a “targeted attack on Christians.” Not a syllable about the ideology that actually pulled the trigger. Not a breath acknowledging that this was not Antifa, not the Democrats, not the left — but a far-right zealot steeped in the very rhetoric Trump has stoked for years.
This is more than hypocrisy. It’s a political cover-up. Trump refuses to condemn right-wing terror because he thrives on it. He needs the anger, the paranoia, the fever of grievance. So he shifts the blame to imaginary enemies while giving real extremists a free pass. That is not leadership; that is incitement by omission.
Trump does not shield America — he shields the extremists who worship him. And every time he does, he erodes the truth, weakens democracy, and leaves the country more vulnerable to the next act of violence. That is the true legacy of his silence: a nation poisoned, not protected.
And once again, he drags the entire world into this whirlwind of violence, working to normalize it, to make it seem inevitable — as if brutality were the new order he longs to impose.
...Et par-delà les mers, son poison se répand : il entraîne le monde entier dans son chaos, cherchant à banaliser la violence comme si elle était devenue la norme.
#DemolitionDad
#TrumpShutdown
#TrumpsGovernmentShutdown
Gioia From France 🇫🇷
I recognize exactly that same chill Marc Elias describes. That creeping sense of horror, the dread that the abnormal has become ordinary. It feels like a poison spreading — not only in America, but beyond its borders, across the oceans.
Trump’s chaos, his endless assaults on truth, on democracy, on human dignity, seep into the atmosphere like a toxic fog. And little by little, the world risks inhaling it, until outrage dulls, until lies feel familiar, until violence is just another headline.
That is the most frightening part: not only what he does, but how he makes us accept it as “normal.”
Encore une fois, c’est un poison qui se répand au-delà des mers, infiltrant nos esprits et nos vies comme s’il voulait anesthésier toute résistance.
#DemolitionDad
#TrumpShutdown
#TrumpsGovernmentShutdown
Gioia From France 🇫🇷