Trump team claims “Kamala’s interns” lied about statements on the JD Vance School shooting

The Trump team attacked Kamala Harris' “interns” for spreading “fake news” after the Democratic presidential candidate's team fired a broadside at JD Vance for complaining that school shootings are an unfortunate “fact of life” that warrants stronger security in public schools.

At a campaign rally in Phoenix on Thursday, Vance called this week's shooting in Georgia “a terrible tragedy” that should not have happened and expressed his condolences to the families affected by Apalachee High School.

“I don't like that it's a fact,” Vance said in response to a reporter's question. “But if you're a psychopath and you want to make headlines, you have to know that our schools are easy targets. And we need to beef up security at our schools so that a psychopath who comes through the front door and kills a bunch of kids can't do that.”

In response, the Harris team tweeted a statement saying, “Donald Trump and JD Vance think school shootings are a 'fact of life' and 'we need to get over it'” – the latter citing a reference to remarks Trump made in January after a school shooting in Iowa. “It's just awful, so surprising to see this, but we need to get over it, we need to move forward,” the former president said at the time.

Trump's camp responded with its own tweet. “Kamala's interns just released a statement spreading FAKE NEWS that the Associated Press just retracted,” it said. “Watch the entire video and you will clearly see that JD Vance is not saying what they are accusing him of saying.”

While Vance did indeed describe school shootings as a “fact of life,” the Harris camp’s statement fails to mention that the Republican vice presidential candidate has advocated for a level of security in schools that would prevent shootings.

The Trump campaign's claim that the Associated Press issued a retraction appears to refer to a deleted tweet, not a story.

The AP deleted a post on X in which Vance called school shootings a “fact of life” without mentioning that he regretted the situation, and replaced it with a post with more details. The news agency did not retract its article about Vance's remarks, which was linked in both tweets.