President Donald Trump’s counterterrorism czar got into a fiery clash with a CNN anchor after he was accused of fixating on the trans identity of the Minnesota school shooter.
Sebastian Gorka made an appearance on the network Sunday, during which he discussed this week’s deadly church shooting, carried out by 23-year-old Robin Westman, who is reported to have been born male but identified as a woman.
“Just as with the transgender attack on the Nashville Christian School, in which more children were killed, there is an ideological connection to multiple of these attacks where innocent children, especially Christians and Catholics, are targeted,” Gorka put it to CNN, referencing a separate 2023 shooting in Tennessee, also carried out by a transgender individual.
“It is very, very disturbing,” the anti-terrorism adviser added.
But network anchor Brianna Keilar said he “missing the bigger picture,” pointing out that of the 32 school mass shootings that have occurred in the country since 2020, only two others were carried out by perpetrators who identified as transgender or gender-diverse.
She appeared to be referencing figures from non-profit The Gun Violence Archive, which in 2023 found that of all mass shootings over the previous decade, only 0.11% had been carried out by transgender suspects.
Gorka was having none of it. “Forgive me if I don‘t go with CNN‘s stats, okay? CNN has proven itself to be wholly inaccurate in all kinds of things for the last ten years,” he shot back. “Perpetrators of the Russia Russia hoax, and that we didn‘t have an open border. So please, forgive me if I don‘t take your stats for granted.”
“It’s simple math. Two of 32,” Keilar responded, adding that the network “could not stick with your facts because they are not accurate.”
This appeared to particularly incense Gorka, who accused CNN of making up “fake news” on the spot in order to discredit his argument. After regaining his cool, he went on to explain that he thinks the solution to gun violence at schools is to look for “early warning signals” among potential perpetrators.
“And what about all the non-trans school shooters?” Keilar asked.
“What about all… the same thing happens!” Gorka replied. “They have multiple interactions with authorities, with their schools, with the principals. Why is something not being done instead of blaming an inanimate object, which is the weapon?”
In response to an emailed request for comment on this story, Gorka said, “The Daily Beast are gutter-press propagandist hacks.”
