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Donald Trump Jr. speaking to reporters during the CPAC Conference, 2023
Donald Trump Jr. claimed that trans people are the "most violent domestic terror threat" in the U.S.
The suspected shooter in the assassination of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman once claimed that transgender people have been corrupted by "the enemy" — but that hasn't stopped Donald Trump Jr. from claim he's part of the "radical transgender movement."
The president's son falsely claimed during a recent conversation with right-wing pundit Benny Johnson that the man accused of murdering and attempting to murder Democratic lawmakers, who had a list of Democratic elected officials and other progressive activists he intended to target, is actually a left-wing extremist with connections to the trans community.
“It’s like the radical transgender movement is per capita the most violent domestic terror threat, if not in America, probably the entire world … because you have all these shooters and murderers or attempted murderers in such a tiny population," Trump Jr. said, contrary to all available evidence.
Trans people are significantly more likely to be the victims of crimes than the perpetrators. The Williams Institute found trans people are over four times more likely than their cisgender peers to experience violent victimization, and out of 4,684 mass shootings documented by the Gun Violence Archive since 2014, at most six involved trans people. This accounts for 0.128 percent of all mass shooters, in stark contrast to the 99.9 percent of mass shootings carried out by cis individuals.
Vance Boelter was arrested Sunday on second-degree murder and two charges of attempted second-degree murder. He is accused of killing Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, a former Speaker of the House, and her husband, Mark, in their home in the suburb of Brooklyn Park. Boelter then allegedly shot Minnesota state Sen. Mark Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, in their home. The two survived because their adult daughter, Hope, called the police after her mother shielded her from the bullets with her body.
Boelter, a cis man, was previously listed on a website for Minnesota Africans United, a nonprofit providing aid to African countries, as CEO of Red Lion Group and Praetorian Guard Security Services. Since Boelter was identified as a suspect in the shooting, the organization has taken his biography down, but it remains accessible in web archives.
Videos surfaced online this weekend of Boelter speaking at a conference in Matadi, the DRC, first reported by Wired. Boetler was supposed to be discussing a food pilot program, but became derailed by ranting against what he called sins corrupting America.
“There’s people, especially in America,” he said in one clip posted by independent journalist Erin Reed of Erin in the Morning. “They don’t know what sex they are. They don’t know their sexual orientation — they’re confused. The enemy has gotten so far into their mind and their soul.”
