John Hickenlooper goes after Donald Trump again. This time it’s about Orlando.

Hickenlooper recalled Colorado’s experience with mass shootings and said Trump’s response missed the mark in a big way.
2 min. read

Continuing his role as a national-level Hillary Clinton surrogate, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper went after Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times for the Republican nominee's comments on the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando that left 49 people dead, as well as the gunman.

Hickenlooper recalled Colorado's experience with mass shootings and said Trump's response missed the mark in a big way.

“His meanspirited response, and trying to seize the political opportunity,” Mr. Hickenlooper said of Mr. Trump, was unfair to “the injured victims and their family members.”

“He cared nothing for compassion, there was no sense of dignity, and those are the things that generally a community grieving finds nourishing,” Mr. Hickenlooper said.

In case you missed it or somehow managed to forget, this was Trump's tweet as news of the massacre unfolded:

The Times goes on to suggest that Hickenlooper could be in attack mode as an audition for the vice presidential spot on Hillary Clinton's ticket, though Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has used stronger language against the Republican nominee.

 Hickenlooper was a prominent voice at a rally earlier this month to denounce Trump's repeated statements that an American-born judge was biased against him because the judge's parents were immigrants from Mexico.

Mr. Hickenlooper’s denouncement could serve to highlight for Mrs. Clinton’s team his instinct to battle the rival nominee, an important role that vice-presidential candidates play for the top of the ticket.

That said, a short list described by the Wall Street Journal earlier this week did not include Hickenlooper's name.

Maybe the governor was just speaking his mind.

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