Newspaper columnist and former senior adviser to the Labour Party, Fergus Finlay, has been criticised for comments he made on RTÉ Radio in the wake of an apparent assassination attempt against US President Donald Trump.
Finlay said that one of the “really great” things about the shooting was that “it spared the entire world Donald Trump’s speech”. Critics said his remarks were “totally classless”, an example of discourse that “poisons debate”, and “the height of bad taste”.
Mr Trump and other leaders in the administration were evacuated from the high-profile White House correspondents’ dinner last night after a gunman opened fire near a security checkpoint at the glitzy event in Washington DC.
The suspect has been identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen. Officials said he was armed with multiple weapons and appears to have acted alone. Today, acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said initial findings suggest the shooter was “targeting administration officials”, which “likely” included the president.
Discussing the events on the Brendan O’Connor show, Irish Examiner columnist, Fergus Finlay, said he thought there were “some good things” about what had happened
“I thought there were some good things about last night,” Finlay said, noting that no-one was seriously hurt and that a CNN anchor was caught in the corridor with the “potential assassin” and had a “very scary experience”.
But then he added: “I do think the other really great thing about the whole thing was it spared the entire world Donald Trump’s speech – the speech he was planning to make, because you can absolutely depend on him doing 10 minutes of scripted and then maybe an hour and a half of the rambling he goes on with.”
“He hates the media,” Finlay added, saying Trump was “going to have an unmerciful go”.
When the host, Brendan O’Connor said that the panel was not going to “get into victim-blaming”, Finlay said that Trump was “not a victim”. However, Mr Finlay was not criticised for his remarks and the station did not distance itself from the comments. The Irish Examiner columnist is a regular guest on RTÉ programmes.
Former editor of the Irish Catholic, Michael Kelly, wrote: “Totally classless from Fergus Finlay on the radio glibly saying the Trump assassination attempt saved everyone from having to listen to his speech. A total lack of basic human decency that poisons debate.”
Some commentators asked RTÉ to explain the comment and response – and questioned why Finlay wasn’t challenged by the state broadcaster.
Columnist Ian O’Doherty said that “one of the great failures of Irish journalism has been the uniform hatred of Trump. Loathing him became a morality test”.
One reply to Mr O’Doherty said: “You’d be absolutely sick of RTE, they’re current affairs programmes are so predictable, all leftists or liberals on the talk shows or panels, why is this tolerated on a national broadcaster who should be balanced and have all voices heard on the air.”
Speaking to Gript, Carol Nolan TD said that the comments reflected what she called RTÉ’s relentless bias in covering American politics. “Although the statement was the height of bad taste, it was hardly out of keeping with RTE”s relentless bias towards the Democrat Party worldview which it favours,” she said.
However, other commentators supported Finlay’s right to free expression in regard to the shooting, or said they agreed with his description of Trump’s ‘blathering’.
“Far be it from me to defend the usual blandspeak, but isn’t Fergus Finlay correct, on this occasion? Donald Trump is a moron who rambles endlessly about how great he is, like a delusional asylum inmate, while talking about destroying civilisations. If it was actually an attempted anything at all, it was a very half-arsed attempt at it. No one was killed or badly injured. And many people in the room, realising there was little or no danger to anyone, either sat and ate their dinner or rambled around swiping champagne off the cleared out tables. No one actually wants to listen to an idiot blathering,” was one response.
After the shooting, in an address from the White House, President Trump said it was “always shocking when this happens, that never changes”, adding that the alleged gunman appeared to have had “hatred in his heart for a while”. He added that he believed the suspect was “strongly anti-Christian”, though police are still investigating motives.
Trump added that he didn’t know quite how dangerous his job was when he ran for president. “If you’re a consequential president you’re in much more danger than if you’re not a consequential president”, he said.
On Sunday, he told press: “I wasn’t worried. I understand life. We live in a crazy world” and added that he didn’t make “it easy” for Secret Service agents to evacuate him from the room during the commotion which saw attendees diving under tables and armed security personnel take charge of the room.
“I wanted to see what was happening… I wanted to see what was going on. And by that time we started to realise, maybe it was a bad problem,” BBC reports.
Asked about “going down” as he was led from the room, Trump replied: “I started walking with them [the security team]. I turned, I started walking, and they said, ‘Please go down. Please go down on the floor.’
Yesterday, Micheál Martin condemned he said was the “shocking” apparent assassination attempt on President Trump. “It was very serious and very shocking to watch the scenes,” Mr Martin said.
“There can be absolutely no place for violence in politics and our thoughts are with the police officer, the agent who was injured, and indeed with all those impacted by such an event.”