President Donald Trump on Monday brushed off a question about why he refused to lower flags for Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, assassinated in June along with her husband. The president, who had last week personally ordered flags lowered for slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk and attended a candlelight vigil featuring a 40-foot LED cross, explained that he “wasn’t familiar” with Hortman’s case but would “definitely” have shown respect had someone reminded him on Truth Social.
The exchange began during a White House briefing, when CBS’s Nancy Cordes asked why the administration honored Kirk but not Hortman. “Do you think it would have been fitting to lower the flags to half-staff when Melissa Hortman … was gunned down by an assassin as well?” Cordes asked.
“Not familiar. The who?” Trump replied, leaning across the Resolute Desk as though the name belonged to a contestant on “The Masked Singer.” When Cordes clarified that Hortman was the Minnesota House Speaker, a Democrat, killed this summer, Trump said, “Oh. Well, if the governor had asked me to do that, I would have done that.”
Trump never mentioned Minnesota Governor Tim Walz by name but later called speaking to him a “waste of time.” He also mused aloud that constant memorial requests could become a logistical burden, saying, “People make requests for the lowering of the flag, and oftentimes you have to say no, because it would be a lot of lowering.”
Critics immediately noted that “a lot of lowering” had not stopped the president from half-staffing flags for Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA and a close Trump ally. The Minnesota killings—where suspect Vance Boelter allegedly disguised himself as a police officer to ambush multiple Democratic lawmakers—were declared a “political assassination” by Walz. State flags were lowered automatically.
Still, the White House insisted its selective mourning followed “standard procedures,” an explanation observers described as “the kind of bureaucracy usually reserved for DMV visits, not murdered elected officials.”
Trump went on to deny he had ever blamed “just one side” for political violence, seconds before blaming “the radical left” for “tremendous violence.” Vice President J.D. Vance echoed the sentiment, calling for national “unity” on his podcast dedicated to Kirk’s memory but declining to mention Hortman or the other recent attacks on Democratic officials.
Experts say the episode illustrates an emerging pattern: acts of violence against Democratic leaders receive minimal recognition from Republican leadership unless they serve a narrative about “radical left” aggression. The act of lowering a flag—a symbolic gesture usually considered automatic—now functions as a partisan loyalty test.
Meanwhile, Minnesota officials continue to honor Hortman, who served as House Speaker since 2017, and Senator John Hoffman, wounded in the same spree. For his part, Trump reiterated that he “would’ve” lowered the flags if only someone had asked nicely. “I could be nice and call, but why waste time?” he said of Walz, before moving on to discuss his golf scores.
