No, Tim Walz Is Not Friends with School Shooters

“Did Tampon Tim conscionable accidental helium has ‘become friends with schoolhouse shooters?’” Trump wrote connected Truth Social utilizing the nickname helium has fixed Walz. “He isn’t adjacent qualified to beryllium Governor, fto unsocial Vice President. Walz and Kamala DO NOT HAVE WHAT IT TAKES!”

Trump past posted 2 video clips of Walz making the remark and 2 graphics with Walz’s representation alongside the punctuation astir schoolhouse shooters. Trump besides shared a screenshot of a station connected X from Andrew Pollack, the begetter of a unfortunate of a schoolhouse shooting, who wrote: “My girl was killed successful the Parkland schoolhouse shooting. It’s perfectly abhorrent that Tim Walz has befriended schoolhouse shooters. Disqualifying.” Pollack’s station connected X, which quotes a station from the authoritative Trump War Room account, has been viewed 3.8 cardinal times.

Moments later, Trump posted a meme of a mocked-up Trump-Vance gait motion with the tagline “Not Friends of School Shooters —a meme that was primitively posted to X by Laura Loomer, a adjacent state of Trump who has, until recently, been seen traveling with the erstwhile president to run events.

Loomer, an antisemitic, far-right troll, took the conspiracy further, asking: “Was @Tim_Walz friends with Thomas Matthew Crooks and Ryan Routh too?”—a notation to the men charged with attempting to assassinate Trump successful caller months. Loomer besides posted a mock-up poster for the sitcom Friends with the actors’ faces replaced by Walz and a fig of wide shooters.

While astir of the post-debate speech connected tv focused connected different aspects of the event, Trump was intelligibly unhappy that much radical were not focusing connected Walz’s gaffe. “Why aren’t the aft shows talking astir the information that Walz said, ‘I’m friends with schoolhouse shooters,’” Trump wrote astir midnight connected Tuesday.

But crossed the right-wing ecosystem of talking heads and pundits, the assertion that Walz was friends with schoolhouse shooters rapidly took hold.

“Calling it close present but Tim Walz saying he's “friends with schoolhouse shooters” volition beryllium the #1 happening remembered astir this debate,” Jack Posobiec, the far-right troll and Pizzagate promoter who was portion of the authoritative Trump run warfare country for the debate, wrote connected Telegram. “It's the 'eating the cats' of the VP debate.”

“Is it mean to befriend schoolhouse shooters?” Charlie Kirk, the laminitis of the pro-Trump Turning Point USA group, wrote connected Telegram.

Posobiec besides posted aggregate memes astir the situation, including 1 showing Walz superimposed into a video of an existent schoolhouse shooting. He besides posted a video recorded by Chaya Raichik, who runs the hate-fiulled anti-LGBTQ relationship LibsofTikTok and was besides successful the GOP’s statement warfare room.

Tucker Carlson, the erstwhile Fox News big and adjacent state of Trump, opened his post-debate amusement discussing the incident, claiming it “raises a batch of different questions” and failing to relationship for the information that Walz misspoke.

Hundreds of different right-wing accounts connected X posted clips of Walz’s remark without immoderate context, dozens of them racking up millions of views connected their posts. Others posted a clip of Walz aft the statement getting pizza with his wife, erstwhile a newsman asked: "Can you clarify what you meant erstwhile you said you became friends with schoolhouse shooters?” Walz refused to reply the question.