‘It’s simple math’: CNN host calls out Trump aide for mass shooting misinformation

CNN host Brianna Keilar has called out one of president Donald’s Trump’s counter-terrorism aides, Sebastian Gorka, for pedalling misinformation about mass shootings.

Talking about the shooting that took place at a Catholic school in Minneapolis last week, Sebastian Gorka claimed there was an “ideological connection” between it and what he called the “transgender attack” on a Nashville Christian school in 2023. 

‘You’re missing the bigger picture’

In response, Keilar said: “When you’re looking at the Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center, looking at 172 mass attacks in the US between 2016 and 2020, 96 per cent were non-trans men. 

“I know you’re focusing on this shooter being trans. The shooter was trans and that is certainly of note, but are you missing the bigger picture here when you zero in on that instead of more broadly these school shooters as an epidemic, and you perhaps miss [what] connects them all?”

Sebastian Gorka hit back, saying the focus should be on “mass shootings at schools, specifically Christian or Catholic schools”, adding: “So, don’t conflate different data sets just to make a political point. There was an ideological content to this attack. That’s what terrorism is.”

‘It’s simply math’

But State of the Union host Keilar wasn’t done. “By CNN’s count, when you look at 32 school shootings since 2020, in which you have four or more people who have been killed, only three of those shootings were committed by transgender shooters… it’s simple math,” she said. “We can’t stick with your facts because they’re not accurate.”

Two children, eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel, and Harper Moyski, 10, were killed when gunman Robin Westman opened fire at the church at the Annunciation Catholic School during mass on Wednesday (27 August). Eighteen other people were injured.

Westman, who is believed to have been trans, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene. No specific motive has been uncovered, according to Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara.

In the wake of the shooting, secretary of health Robert F Kennedy Jr claimed anti-depressants, as well as some other medicines, were driving trans people to commit mass shootings.

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