He then censured Trump’s stances on legal immigration and tied it into this weekend’s shootings:
“What he has to understand, in a nation when you have many, many thousands of people who are mentally unstable, when you talk about invasions and hordes of people, and talk about Mexicans as criminals and rapists, and a country under siege, you have unstable people who see that as a sign they have to take up arms and do the horrific things that we just saw in El Paso.”
Sanders then concluded his remarks by denouncing the president as a white nationalist, a racist, and a xenophobe.
Pushback Against Sanders’ Take
In the wake of the tragedies in Ohio and Texas, many Americans pushed back against Sanders’ take on Trump bearing responsibility. The pushback overwhelmingly comes from conservatives who maintain that mental health issues play a large role in these shootings. Moreover, the right-wing censured progressives for seizing the two shootings as opportunities to call for stricter gun control measures.
