by Brenna Henderson ’21

President Donald Trump’s responses to the recent bombing attempts on Democrats and other critics of the president is unpresidential and unsupportive. The bombing attempts by Cesar Sayoc started on Monday, October 22, and were sent to at least 13 people over the course of five days, although no one was injured. Trump’s first mention on Twitter was a retweet with three words, “I agree wholeheartedly” in response to Vice President Mike Pence condemning the bombing attempts. Trump only mentioned the bombing attempts twice more, the second time when criticizing the media and the third time blaming the attempts on why the Republican may be losing momentum before the midterms.

Trump didn’t take all of five minutes to write out a message of his own but instead left the work to his vice president and tagged his name. Trump also blames the media for using the attempts to score political points and says that the media creates a hateful environment. Yet it’s Trump who calls the media, “Lowly rated CNN” and “The failing New York Times” and makes stabs at them like, “The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People.” If Trump really wants to stop the hateful environment, then he should stop using Twitter.

A president’s focus should be on the troubles of the American people and when bombing attempts happen, he should focus on helping the victims and comforting the country. However, Trump was worried about the polls and moreover the Republicans winning the elections. Trump’s exact words were, “Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this ‘Bomb’ stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows – news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!” Trump focused on his own personal gains, which isn’t just unpresidential but selfish and vile. Stephen Colbert said it best when he commented, “We fact checked that one and it doesn’t work out: You have no whole heart.”