MSNBC’s Jen Psaki Trips Over Herself Trying to Use Minnesota School Shooting to Score Points

MSNBC’s Jen Psaki wasted no time at all trying to capitalize on the horrific school shooting at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Wednesday.

Police responded to the ghastly scene at the school shortly before 8:27 a.m. local time. After the dust settled, authorities revealed that two children died and 17 people were injured during the attack. Less than three hours later, Psaki, the Democratic flack-turned-de facto-Democratic flack, was doing the only thing she knows how to.

“Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does not end school shootings. prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers,” she tweeted initially.

Psaki was not the only one to react to the tragedy by advocating for the kind of gun control measures she and her peers support — or to denigrate the power of prayer despite the fact that the Annunciation community doubtlessly believes in it, regardless of its parishioners’ views on gun policy.

“Don’t just say we need thoughts and prayers. These kids were literally in a church praying,” observed Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D).

“We cannot even make it through the first week of school without mass shootings. And the @GOP will continue to do absolutely nothing while our kids are being gunned down. This is sick,” declared California Governor Gavin Newsom (D).

There is something twisted about mocking prayer given the victims in this circumstance, and it is rather cynical to — without knowing so many of the underlying facts — pin the blame for an individual act of evil on an entire political party. But these expressions of anger and indignance are comprehensible in the immediate aftermath of such tragedy. One cannot help but be angry in such moments, and many Democrats surely believe that their preferred policies would save lives.

But Psaki wasn’t done yet.

“When kids are getting shot in their pews at a catholic school mass and your crime plan is to have national guard put mulch down around DC maybe rethink your strategy,” she suggested next.

The vulgarity of Psaki’s utterance was almost — almost — overshadowed by its imbecility. To state the obvious: President Donald Trump’s crackdown on crime in Washington, D.C., an area over which the federal government is legally obligated to oversee and whose citizens have for years lived in fear, has nothing to do with the carnage in  Minneapolis. Psaki’s “argument,” if it can be called that, is a total non-sequitur. Especially considering the fact that Trump’s actions in D.C. have undoubtedly saved lives; on Tuesday, the capital recorded its first homicide in nearly two weeks.

Perhaps Psaki believes that some prescriptions designed to prevent a loss of life might not be worth the trade-offs. And, if that’s the case, she ought to be more charitable to those who have the same reservations about her own prescriptions. That may be asking a bit too much, though; a deep thinker, Psaki is not.

But Psaki’s intellectual shortcomings are dwarfed by her moral illiteracy. Before she expressed condolences to the victims, she disparaged their religious conviction. Before their parents could even process their loss, she got busy attempting to land a half-baked, ungermane, partisan zinger.

Maybe Jen Psaki ought to rethink more than just her strategy.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.