President Donald Trump attracted a wave of criticism after he pivoted to talking about his 2024 election victory when asked about a National Guard member who recently succumbed to her gunshot wounds.
Trump announced during a Thursday press conference that 20 year-old West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom died on Thanksgiving Day after she was shot in downtown Washington D.C. on Wednesday. 24 year-old guardsman Andrew Wolfe was also shot in the ambush-style attack just blocks away from the White House, and is still in critical condition.
During a Thursday press conference at Mar-a-Lago, one reporter asked the president if he would attend Beckstrom's funeral. At that point, Trump then boasted that he won Beckstrom's home state by a significant margin in the 2024 election.
"I haven't thought about it yet, but it certainly is something I could conceive of. I love West Virginia, and I won West Virginia by one of the biggest margins of any president anywhere," Trump said.
Trump's remarks prompted multiple journalists, commentators and others to condemn him for bragging about his Electoral College win in the wake of a U.S. service member's death. Writer Michael Freeman called the president a "degenerate sociopath." Progressive influencer "Spiro's Ghost" opined that Trump was "truly the most demented malignant narcissist alive."
"He couldn't, even for one moment, just be a decent person and not make it about himself," Atlantic contributor Tom Nichols wrote on X. "Lord have mercy and may her memory be eternal."
"Continually amazed that someone who's been in public life as long as Trump has lacks the capacity to say anything appropriate when someone has died," Iowa Capital Dispatch journalist Laura Belin tweeted.
"Such a man of compassion," quipped journalist Sean Colarossi. "Your death is more meaningful if you come from a place he won by big numbers."
"What a disgusting, vile, grotesque answer to the question, 'are you attending Sarah Beckstrom’s funeral,'" wrote Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based attorney Reno Ciccotta.
"Don’t go. It isn’t about you," tweeted retired Associated Press reporter Norma Love. "She deserves people to celebrate her life who care about her not someone looking for a spotlight."
Watch the video of Trump's remarks below: