Donald Trump Jr. told Fox & Friends on Wednesday that the publicly available list of Trump donors that Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) shared on Twitter is the same thing as the hit list the Dayton shooter created in high school.
Appearing on his father’s favorite morning program, the presidential son complained about the amount of criticism that his dad has received in the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. After saying nothing the president does will satisfy his critics, Trump Jr. brought up Castro, who was blasted by the right this week for sharing a list of his constituents who gave the maximum donation to Trump.
“I’ve seen what’s going on with the Joaquin Castro craziness, putting out a list,” he exclaimed. “That list screams like the Dayton, Ohio shooter’s list, right? When a radical left-wing politician who’s polling at zero percent does this for either attention or a call to action, it’s pretty scary.”
ADVERTISEMENT
(It appears that Don Jr. may have mixed up Joaquin Castro with his twin brother Julian, who is currently running for president. At the same time, Joaquin is running his brother’s campaign.)
“That was the same thing that the Dayton, Ohio shooter did and people should be fed up with this nonsense,” the presidential scion added.
The Fox & Friends crew then went on to read Castro’s tweet, with co-host Ainsley Earhardt reminding Trump Jr. and the audience that the congressman wasn’t saying “go and do something dangerous to these people—it’s completely different from that.”
Don Jr. did not concede that point, however, claiming that Castro was going after “ordinary citizens” and weaponizing the political system, which he said will only motivate the “fringe crazies” into action.
At the end of the segment, co-host Steve Doocy attempted to give Trump Jr. one more chance to draw a clear distinction between a lawmaker sharing publicly available election information and a mass shooter compiling a kill list.
And just to reiterate, the hit list from the guy from Dayton, that was a kill list,” Doocy said, “The Castro list was a list of donors.”
The president’s son, meanwhile, wasn’t completely convinced.
“Correct,” he concluded. “But the fact that we’re making lists of our political enemies and trying to create that narrative is scary. If someone on our campaign did that, it would be rough.”
