Joe Scarborough Blasts Greg Abbott’s ‘Dreadful, Shameful’ Tweet Following Texas Mass Shooting
Joe Scarborough laced into Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s (R) comments following a mass shooting in his home state of Texas.
Scarborough’s comments came as Morning Joe wrapped a discussed the ongoing manhunt for Francisco Oropesa, the suspected perpetrator of a shooting that killed five people over the weekend, including an eight-year-old boy. Oropesa is still on the run, and authorities reportedly don’t have any leads on his location, so Abbott took to social media on Sunday to announce that a reward has been offered for information that leads to his arrest.
In his announcement, Abbott decided to make a point in saying that the victims of the massacre were illegal immigrants, and Oropesa was “in the country illegally.”
As Scarborough talked about this with Charlie Sykes, they ripped Abbott’s announcement for how he seemed to insert “illegal immigrants” into the shooting in order to score political points amid the tragedy:
Sykes: Think about the mentality, the insensitivity. Rather than talking about this family that was caring for their children, an [eight]-year-old boy. Instead of the basic humanity, he felt the need to label them in the most divisive way that he can, because we know what the politics of Greg Abbott are. We know what the politics of Texas Republicans are when it comes to the gun issue and immigration. So for him to connect the dots there takes just one more data point of the cruelty, the brutality. I mean, I’m not telling you anything when I say that for many of these politicians, the cruelty is the point, and that he felt the need to insert that line into that particular moment just reminds us of that.
Scarborough: It is a sad, sad moment for our country, a tragic moment out of Texas. Also sad for American democracy when you actually have the governor of one of the largest states in America feeling the need to be hateful and to be callous after a mother tries to shield her [eight]-year-old child. Both are shot in the head, and instead of even a ‘hope and prayers’ tweet, he feels like he has to stamp a label on the dead bodies: ‘Illegal immigrant.’ Just think about the mindset of that.
Just think about the mindset of that. A guy who probably runs around, you know, maybe he’s part of this Christian nationalist movement, but what would Jesus do? You know, you don’t have to be a Bible scholar to know, not that. What a dreadful, shameful thing from the governor from a state that brought us Uvalde. You saw what happened in Sandy Hook. It just shattered the country, and yet in Congress, they did nothing…You can go through Parkland. There was movement on guns in Florida after that tragedy, but then, yeah, Uvalde. You’ve already got some Republicans in Congress to do something, but not enough. The carnage continues. Little children continue to get slaughtered by weapons designed for war. And still, the Republican Party does nothing.
Watch above via MSNBC.
