An oral history of the day Donald Trump’s teleprompter addressed the nation on hate | Will Bunch

On Monday morning, America was still reeling from twin mass shootings that claimed at least 31 lives in El Paso and Dayton. With the nation at a crossroads, some unknown individual uploaded words into a teleprompter that were then read aloud by President Trump on national television. The rote recitations condemning white supremacy and extolling national unity sounded nothing like the Donald Trump that the nation has come to know over the last 31 months. What follows is an oral history of the 15 minutes that didn’t change America.

Donald Trump’s teleprompter: Good morning. My fellow Americans, this morning our nation is overcome with shock, horror, and sorrow…We are outraged and sickened by this monstrous evil, the cruelty, the hatred, the malice, the bloodshed, and the terror. (August 5, 2019)

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Donald Trump in March 2019: “People hate the word invasion, but that’s what it is.” (In vetoing legislation meant to stop him from re-routing $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds for building a border wall, on March 15, 2019. It was one of a number of times he and his allies have called the refugee crisis at the border “an invasion”)

El Paso gunman: “This is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” (Manifesto posted to website 8chan 20 minutes before the gunman murdered 22 shoppers inside the El Paso Walmart, August 3, 2019)

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Donald Trump’s teleprompter: “Our hearts are shattered for every family whose parents, children, husbands, and wives were ripped from their arms and their lives.” (August 5, 2019)

CNN: “The undocumented immigrant from Honduras sobbed as she told an attorney Tuesday how federal authorities took her daughter while she breastfed the child in a detention center, where she was awaiting prosecution for entering the country illegally.” (June 14, 2018.)

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Donald Trump’s teleprompter: “We have asked the FBI to identify all further resources they need to investigate and disrupt hate crimes and domestic terrorism.” (August 5, 2019)

The Daily Beast: “The Department of Homeland Security has disbanded a group of intelligence analysts who focused on domestic terrorism, The Daily Beast has learned. Numerous current and former DHS officials say they find the development concerning, as the threat of homegrown terrorism—including white supremacist terrorism—is growing.” (April 2, 2019)

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Donald Trump’s teleprompter: “We must recognize that the internet has provided a dangerous avenue to radicalize disturbed minds and perform demented acts.” (August 5, 2019)

Trump 2020 campaign ad on Facebook: “We have an INVASION! So we are BUILDING THE WALL to STOP IT. Dems will sue us. But we want a SAFE COUNTRY! It’s CRITICAL that we STOP THE INVASION.” (one of 2,000 Trump campaign Facebook ads purchased recently).

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Lawyers for convicted mail bomber Caesar Sayoc: “In this darkness, Mr. Sayoc found light in Donald J. Trump.” (blaming Trump’s Twitter feed, in part, for their client’s crime spree, July 23, 2019)

Donald Trump on Twitter, 2014: “I’m having a real hard time watching. Kim should sue her plastic surgeon!” (Posted while watching reclusive then-81-year-old actress Kim Novak at the 2014 Oscars. Novak later said she refused to leave her house for days after the Trump insult. It was an early example of Trump’s divisive online rants that propelled him toward the White House.)

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Donald Trump’s teleprompter: “In the two decades since Columbine, our nation has watched with rising horror and dread as one mass shooting has followed another, over and over again, decade after decade. We cannot allow ourselves to feel powerless.” (August 5, 2019)

Donald Trump in April 2019: “[The 2nd Amendment is] under assault. But not while we’re here.” (speaking to the NRA convention in Indianapolis, April 26, 2019.)

British commentator Dan Hodges: “In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.” (on Twitter, June 19, 2015)

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Donald Trump’s teleprompter: “Second, we must stop the glorification of violence in our society.” (August 5, 2019)

Pro wrestling handler Haz Ali: “He [Trump] proceeds to punch me in the top of the head as if he was hammering a nail in the wall. He punched me as hard as he could. His knuckle caught me on the top of my head, and the next thing I know, I’ve got an egg-sized welt on the top of my head. He hit me as hard as he could, one, two, three. I was like, ‘Holy [bleep], this guy.’”(recalling Trump’s appearance at WWF Wrestlemania 23 in April 2007)

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Donald Trump’s teleprompter: “This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace.” (August 5, 2019)

Chris Ferguson, psychology professor at Stetson University: “The data on bananas causing suicide is about as conclusive. Literally. The numbers work out about the same.” (New York Times, August 6, 2019, describing research into video games and mass shootings for the American Psychological Association.

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Donald Trump’s teleprompter: “Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.” (August 5, 2019)

New York Times: “The only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is its astronomical number of guns.” (article on latest research into mass shootings, November 2017)

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Donald Trump’s teleprompter: “Today, I’m also directing the Department of Justice to propose legislation ensuring that those who commit hate crimes and mass murders face the death penalty, and that this capital punishment be delivered quickly, decisively, and without years of needless delay.” (August 5, 2019)

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini: But the nation … cannot, must not, be periodically troubled by a group of criminals…We intend to stop this series of attempts by restoring capital punishment. In this way it will become less and less easy to almost threaten the regime’s existence and the tranquility of the Italian people.” (restoring the death penalty in 1926.)

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Donald Trump’s teleprompter: “Now is the time to set destructive partisanship aside, so destructive, and find the courage to answer hatred with unity, devotion, and love.” (August 5, 2019)

Donald Trump in August 2019: “The rage-filled Democrat Party is trying to tear America apart. The Democrat Party is now being led by four left-wing extremists who reject everything that we believe in.” (Cincinnati rally on Aug. 1, 2019 – two days before the El Paso shooting)

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Donald Trump’s teleprompter: “May God bless the memory of those who perished in Texas and Ohio…” (August 5, 2019)

Donald Trump in August 2019: “May God bless the memory of those who perished in Toledo...” (August 5, 2019)

Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI director of counter-intelligence: “That’s going to be interpreted by many extremists as lip service that he has to say because of his office. And they’re going to feel like he’s still with them.” (on BBC News, August 5, 2019)

New York Times: “TRUMP URGES UNITY VS. RACISM.” (Initial front page, later changed, August 6, 2019)

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Donald Trump on Twitter, 2019: “’Did George Bush ever condemn President Obama after Sandy Hook. President Obama had 32 mass shootings during his reign. Not many people said Obama is out of Control. Mass shootings were happening before the President even thought about running for Pres.”’ @kilmeade @foxandfriends (August 6, 2019, just 21 hours after the teleprompter speech.)

Brian Kilmeade, co-host of Fox & Friends: “If you use the term ‘an invasion,’ that’s not anti-Hispanic. It’s a fact.” (August 6, 2019, the morning after the teleprompter speech)

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Dayton mayor Nan Whaley: “I’ve heard that he’s coming Wednesday but I have not gotten a call. And you know, he might be going to Toledo, I don’t know.” (August 5, 2019)