ABC Anchor Twists Facts To Portray Shooter As Trump Supporter

Few moments best capture ABC News’ reputation as “propaganda press” better than anchor Aaron Katersky’s misleading coverage of the alleged anti-Christian, anti-Trump Minneapolis school shooter — who Katersky effectively portrayed as a Trump supporter on Wednesday.

Robin Westman, a man who identified as trans and legally changed his name from Robert, allegedly opened fire at a Catholic school on Wednesday, killing two young children and injuring more than a dozen. A manifesto and several videos apparently left behind by Westman and related to the shooting have surfaced over the last day.

“We’ve also been going through [the video manifesto] and can tell you there are crude diagrams of the church. There are also photos of the weapons, and they include all sorts of writings, the names of past mass shooters, criticism of Israel, the name of President Trump written on the guns,” Katersky said Wednesday. “There are also racial slurs, nihilistic statements, all painting the picture of a disturbed individual who carried out this mass shooting on the first week of school at the Annunciation Church in Minneapolis.”

Katersky omitted the actual full inscription related to Trump revealed in the videos, which was: “Kill Donald Trump.” Casual listeners who didn’t see the footage of the weapons themselves or read the manifesto could easily walk away thinking Trump’s name on the weapon meant allegiance to him, not homicidal rage against him.

Such framing is clearly deliberate and meant to fit ABC News’ preferred narrative that Trump inspires violence. In 2020, the network ran an article claiming it identified 54 criminal cases supposedly inspired by Trump. (Notably, after a shooter openly targeted Trump in an attempted assassination last year, ABC insisted the motive was a “mystery” — even in light of divisive left-wing rhetoric painting the then-nominee as an authoritarian “threat to Democracy.”)

But this background helps explain Katersky’s deceptive coverage. ABC News didn’t need all the facts to push a narrative, it just needed Trump’s name and a shooting. Deceptive coverage like this is how outlets like ABC News continually earn the title: “Propaganda Press.” These outlets don’t always outright lie — they bend, omit, or spin a story until the audience walks away with the exact opposite of the truth.

Katersky twisted the facts until evidence suggesting the shooter was a Trump-hating, Christian-hating killer looked like proof of Trump-inspired violence.