On the heels of President Donald Trump casting blame for the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, on all sorts of things besides lax gun laws, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) expressed his irritation with the administration’s response.
On Monday, the presidential hopeful referred to Trump’s address about the shootings as “bullshit soup” in a group text message that included his campaign manager.
“Listening to the president. Such a bullshit soup of ineffective words,” said Booker in the text shared by campaign manager Addisu Demissie. “This is so weak. We should quickly condemn his lack of a real plan.”
Earlier on Monday, Trump spoke out on the horrific shootings that left more than two dozen people dead and many others injured. He blamed the shootings on white supremacy, the internet, video games and mental illness, never putting blame on the use of guns in America or himself.
After calling the “wicked” shooters’ actions “evil” and “barbaric,” Trump vowed to “act with urgent resolve” and called on the country to condemn racism and white supremacy, despite his own role in proliferating those ideologies.
Booker’s response to Trump comes on the heels of other 2020 hopefuls also using profanity as a means of expressing their frustration with Trump’s behavior.
On Sunday night, Beto O’Rourke sounded off about Trump in response to a CNN reporter’s question about what the president can do now to make everything better.
“What do you think? You know the shit he’s been saying. He’s been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I don’t know, like, members of the press, what the fuck?” exclaimed O’Rourke.
In similar fashion to Booker, Rep. Tim Ryan responded to Trump’s address on Monday with expletives of his own.
After the president mistakenly read Toledo from the teleprompter instead of Dayton as the location of Saturday night’s shooting in Ohio, Ryan tweeted: