Bestselling author Stephen King weighed in more than once this week about the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Trump on Saturday narrowly escaped death during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, with a bullet fired by would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks causing a flesh wound after grazing the former president's right ear. One rally spectator was killed in the shooting, while two others suffered serious injuries.
King, the author of classic horror novels like The Shining and It and an outspoken Democrat who frequently criticizes Trump, made his opinions on the assassination attempt known by sharing several remarks that roiled Trump supporters on X, formerly Twitter.
"An AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle was used in the Butler shooting," King posted on Sunday morning. "These are the guns the Republican party—and Trump—want to protect."
X user @TheGeneral_0, a self-described "America First Conservative," was one of several Trump supporters and conservatives who responded negatively to the gun control message, writing the following in response to King's post: "For a fiction writer, Stephen King knows little about this subject. Stay your [sic] fictional lane."
"Here's what I know, as a responsible gun owner: Those people would be alive and Trump would be unwounded if all that crazy kid had access to was a butcher knife," King replied. "Don't tell me to stay in my f***ing lane. I'm an American. Are you, or are you a bot?"
Later on the same day, the "King of Horror" reshared an image from satire website The Onion that purported to be an opinion article from a personified AR-15 with the following headline: "It's An Honor To Continue Being Valued Over Countless Human Lives.
On Monday morning, King sparked another round of MAGA outrage by writing the following: "I fear for my country."
Trump-supporting X owner Elon Musk and former sitcom star Roseanne Barr were among those who responded to the post, with Barr seemingly implying that King is a communist by jokingly claiming that he is a citizen of "China."
Newsweek reached out for comment to Trump's office via email on Friday evening.
While King made a number of other remarks on X about Trump, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance and the state of this year's presidential election, his comments on the assassination attempt diminished as the week went on.
King's only other related content was a reshare of the following post from user @EricFoltz: "Two people who were wounded at Trump's rally are in the hospital and one person is dead. Trump didn't visit the hospital or the family of the man who was killed. He went golfing. Nothing more needs to be said."
Despite the post, there is no evidence that Trump went golfing on the day after he was shot. Rumors that circulated on social media of the former president golfing appear to stem from the sharing of old images and footage of Trump in a golf cart that some falsely claimed was from Sunday.
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About the writer
Aila Slisco is a Newsweek night reporter based in New York. Her focus is on reporting national politics, where she ... Read more
