Well, if you were curious what the most disgusting take on the horrible Rust movie-set shooting is, look no further than our former Commander-in-Chief.
As you probably know, on October 21, Alec Baldwin discharged what he was told was a “cold gun” — a safe, unloaded prop weapon — while rehearsing a scene for his new Western. The gun shockingly fired a very real bullet, striking the director Joel Souza and director of photography Halyna Hutchins. The cinematographer was flown to the hospital where she died of her injuries.
The devastating incident is tragic all around, with Hutchins leaving behind a widower and their young son — and Baldwin cursed with the knowledge he pulled the trigger that took a life.
Related: Rust AD’s Lawyer Contradicts Official Accounts From Day Of Shooting
The fact we’ve heard so many conservative voices going after Baldwin no matter what the facts say is disgusting — and pretty obviously motivated only by the fact he made fun of their beloved leader Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live. Just a blatant lack of empathy and consideration.
But of course, Trump himself has them all beat. He isn’t blaming the actor for not checking the weapon or for being an executive producer on a film where safety measures are being called into question. No, he crossed a much more disturbing line.
Some, like Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance, just begged for Trump to come back to Twitter so they could see what he’d say about Baldwin. Now they finally get their wish. During a phone interview with conservative radio host Chris Stigall on Thursday, the former President unloaded on the actor, doing more than just suggesting he should be held accountable for Hutchins’ death. He ranted:
“In my opinion, he had something to do with it, but if nothing else, how do you take a gun, whether it’s loaded or not loaded, how do you take a gun, point it at somebody that’s not even in the movie, and just point it at this person and pull the trigger, and now she’s dead.”
Um, an actor. That’s who would do that. He added:
“If they handed me a gun, I would never point it at somebody and shoot it, you know. I don’t care about checking the gun. They hand you a gun you’re not going to point it at somebody.”
Of course you would. If that’s what the scene called for. Again, that is acting. You horrible airbag. He then ranted:
“This was really a cinematographer, so it’s not even like an actress that’s on set with you, this was a cinematographer, so that means he took the gun and pointed it at a cinematographer, pulled the trigger and she was dead.”
Sorry, but what the f**k is he trying to even say?! This is inane! He’s acting like it was a shocking and disturbing act of lunacy to point a prop gun, like Baldwin was being unhinged.
Look, any time you’ve ever seen a character in a movie pointing a gun toward the camera, they’ve been pointing it in the direction of the camera operator and cinematographer. It’s how it works. That’s why there are so many safety measures to make sure guns are unloaded and cleared of debris. Because they get pointed at people all the time as the camera moves around them to get the right angles.
Related: The Crow And More – A History Of Accidental Shootings In Movies
Of course, there’s no way Trump doesn’t understand that very basic fact. He’s just twisting the situation into the worst possible reading, knowing that his base will parrot him. Just watch them over the next week — and yes, they will even start to repeat this, the most shocking thing we’ve heard anyone say during this entire disgusting campaign:
“As bad as it may have been kept, meaning, you know, the people who take care of the equipment and the gun and everything else. But even if it was loaded, and, you know, that’s a weird thing, maybe he loaded it.”
Maybe he loaded it?? Wow. That is… Honestly it might be a new low for Trump, which is saying something.
We need to be absolutely clear here. We don’t believe for a second that Trump actually believes what he’s saying here. He’s just seeing someone he sees as an enemy who is in a bad situation and pouncing — and as he proved his entire four years in office, he doesn’t care who or what he hurts while he does it.
We doubt he even came on the show intending to say such an inflammatory thing. We don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the ex-POTUS often just lets things fly without care — and then doubles down on them later in order to never have to apologize. You know, a totally safe and normal person to be the leader of the free world.
Speaking of disgusting word vomit, he continued:
“Who would put a gun, ‘Here, Alec, here’s your gun,’ ‘Oh, good,’ lift it up, point it at a person, and pull the trigger, and, ‘Oh, man, a bullet came out,’ she’s dead. So there’s something wrong with him, he’s a sick guy.”
A sick guy?? He was doing his job.
We’ve seen some tasteless responses to the incident, but this is beyond the pale. And it wasn’t over. Trump went on to say about Baldwin:
“I’ve watched him for years. He gets into fistfights with reporters. I mean, everything he does, he’s a volatile guy. He’s a nutjob.”
It’s hard to believe someone could be enough of an unfeeling, cruel piece of work to imply murderous impulses with absolutely no basis at a time like this.
We still don’t know have the full official story of how this happened; the investigation is ongoing. But because of that we’re more careful about what we say about it. Because we’re not trying to cause any undue harm.
From what we have heard and know about the last incident like this, the unbelievably tragic shooting of Brandon Lee, this is almost certainly in no way the actor’s fault — and if anything will be a horrible trauma that he will have to carry for the rest of his life. So this is not a time to attack Alec Baldwin, especially not because you just don’t like his politics. And MOST especially not because you hated how he played a caricature of you on a comedy show.
Photos: RHOC’s Kelly Dodd & Husband Face Backlash For ‘Alec Baldwin’ Halloween Costume!
If you’re thinking there’s no way that can really be what this is all about, you don’t have to take our word for it. Trump couldn’t help himself and, as usual, said the quiet part loud again.
He went right from questioning the man’s mental health and suggesting he had homicidal impulses — because let’s be honest, that is absolutely Trump’s implication here — he actually linked his opinion on the shooting to his favorite rant subject, SNL:
“He did, I thought, a poor job of imitating me. Alec Baldwin was terrible at imitating me and by the way, if I thought he was good and I didn’t like his politics or I didn’t like him, I would have said he was good but he was terrible. I don’t like him or dislike him, I don’t actually know him, but I’ve watched him over the years because of the fact that he did this so much on Saturday Night Live… and he’s a cuckoo bird, he’s a nutjob, and usually when there’s somebody like that, you know — in my opinion he had something to do with it.”
Oh come on. He just admitted he doesn’t know Alec at all — just that he didn’t think he did a good job making fun of him on TV. (As though Trump would ever applaud someone for mocking him.) And he can, with a straight face, say that in the same breath as accusing the man of having the kind of mental health problems that would lead to him intentionally killing a colleague for no reason.
You want to know how awful Trump is? If this were anyone else, he would be trending on Twitter, with people talking about him being canceled for saying such awful things. But with Trump, it’s just what we’ve all come to expect at this point.
Hell, the orange didn’t fall too far from the tree, either. In case you missed it, Donald Trump, Jr. had the second worst response to this tragedy — selling “Alec Baldwin kills people” T-shirts online. At least someone on his team had the sense to put an end to that right away.
We hate to say it, but we wouldn’t be surprised if this stretched narrative caught on among Trumpists now that fearless leader has spoken.
[Image via Johnny Louis/MEGA/WENN.]
The post 'Maybe He Loaded It': Donald Trump Shockingly Suggests 'Nutjob' Alec Baldwin Intentionally Killed Cinematographer appeared first on Perez Hilton.