MSNBC is one of the latest media outlets to completely warp what Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) said about the tragic school shooting at Apalachee High School, falsely asserting that Vance callously dismissed school shootings as a “fact of life.”
“That comment that he made right there is another very, very stark example of the difference between these two campaigns — Harris-Walz versus Trump-Vance. They see it, Trump-Vance, as a fact of life,” MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski claimed.
“And Kamala Harris immediately said after shooting, this is a choice we’re making, and we have to make a different choice. People don’t want this to be a fact of life,” she repeated.
Brzezinski’s framing, however, is completely wrong. In fact, Vance explicitly said that he does not like that school shootings have become a “fact of life,” calling for increased security.
“If these psychos are going to go after our kids, we’ve got to be prepared for it,” Vance said. “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it.”
Further, Vance said it is crucial to “bolster security” at schools.
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”
It should be noted that an armed School Resource Officer stopped the shooter before he could unleash more carnage.
MSNBC is not the only outlet to get Vance’s comment wrong. The Associated Press also took his remarks out of context, as did Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN).
The AP later admitted their mistake, changing the headline to, “JD Vance says he laments that school shootings are a ‘fact of life’ and calls for better security” while adding, “This post replaces an earlier post that was deleted to add context to the partial quote from Vance.”
Vance also hit back at Harris, reminding Americans that she “wants to take security out of our schools instead of protecting our children.”
“Instead of addressing her own failures, she lies about what I said,” he said. “More desperation from the biggest fraud in American politics.”
