Trump’s celebration of Robert Mueller’s death draws bipartisan criticism in NC

US Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican, called Trump’s comments ‘a sad statement,’ while a Democratic state senator wrote that Trump has stained the office of the presidency.

Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who investigated Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election in President Donald Trump’s favor, died on Friday.

On Saturday, Trump posted his reaction on social media.

“Good,” he wrote, “I’m glad he’s dead.”

Mueller, a Republican, was widely respected in both parties. He received the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart as a Marine in Vietnam, and began leading the FBI a week before the 9/11 attacks, serving in the role across the Bush and Obama administrations.

Trump’s post drew bipartisan criticism, including from US Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican. 

“That’s a sad statement about where we are in our political discourse,” Tillis said. “This is a person who served this country and deserves more respect than that.”

Mueller, who was named as special counsel during Trump’s first administration, investigated claims that Russia colluded with Trump’s campaign to help him defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. The investigation led to several arrests, including many former Trump officials and associates. But while Mueller’s nearly 450-page report found that there was not enough evidence to bring charges against Trump himself, it also pointedly declined to clear him.

“While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” the report said.

“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.”

Trump railed against Mueller during the investigation, after the report was released, after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, and countless times since. 

But his response to Mueller’s death stood out, one North Carolina Democratic state senator wrote on social media.

North Carolina state Sen. Michael Garrett, who represents Guilford County, said on social media that Trump’s comments not only disparaged a war hero but further tainted the office of the presidency itself.

“The rot is deep,” Garrett wrote. “Scrubbing this stain from the soul of our nation will not happen in a single election, a single speech, a single post on a Saturday afternoon. It will take years. It will demand more from us than comfort allows.”

‘Feel the full weight of those words.’

Garrett posted his response in two long posts on X and Threads. Here it is in full:

The President of the United States learned that Robert Mueller had died. And he picked up his phone and typed:

“Good. I’m glad he’s dead.”

I need you to stop. Put down whatever you’re doing and feel the full weight of those words.

Good. I’m glad he’s dead.

Said by the man who holds the most powerful office in the history of human civilization. The office of Washington. Of Lincoln. Of Roosevelt standing in the rubble of Pearl Harbor promising a nation trembling in the dark that we would rise.

That office. Those words.

Now let me tell you who Robert Mueller was.

He did not have to go to Vietnam. He had every reason not to. A Princeton degree. A blown-out knee. A future waiting for him in the comfort of civilian life.

He waited a full year for that knee to heal, just so he could serve. Let that sink in.

He walked into hell when other men were running from it. He came home with a Bronze Star for heroism and a Purple Heart soaked in the blood of his sacrifice. He spent the next four decades standing in the breach, as a prosecutor, as FBI Director, as the man who held this nation together in the smoldering ash of September 12th, 2001, when we were all afraid and we needed someone steady, someone serious, someone who loved this country more than he loved himself.

He was all of those things.

He was a Republican.

He was, by every honest measure, an American hero.

‘Our children are watching’

I think about my kids.

I think about the car rides where Jack or Charlotte asks me out of nowhere, the way kids do, when the radio’s low and you think they’re not paying attention, “Dad, what does the President do?”

And I’d tell them. Proudly. That the President is someone who carries the weight of all of us. That the job calls out the very best in a person. That it’s the highest honor this country can give.

I believed that when I said it.

I will not have that conversation today.

Not because I don’t have the words. Because I will not let my children believe for a single second that what they saw this morning is acceptable. That cruelty is strength. That power means you never have to be decent. That you can dance on a hero’s grave and call it justice.

I will not raise children who think that is normal.

I will not raise children who think that is America.

And I know I am not alone.

Because we have been here before.

Men waded through freezing water at Valley Forge for a country that hadn’t fully been born yet. They bled on the beaches of Normandy for children they would never meet. They crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge into swinging batons because they believed, despite every reason not to, that America’s promise was worth the pain.

They did not do that for us to surrender it in silence.

The rot is deep. Scrubbing this stain from the soul of our nation will not happen in a single election, a single speech, a single post on a Saturday afternoon. It will take years. It will demand more from us than comfort allows.

But we do not get to use that as an excuse to look away.

So, it falls to each of us, Democrat, Republican, Independent, who has ever looked at their child and felt the terrifying beauty of knowing you are responsible for shaping who they become.

Stand up.

Not for a party. Not for a politician. For the country you are trying to hand to children who had no say in the world we’re making for them.

Robert Mueller walked into fire, again and again, because he believed America was worth it.

The least we can do, the absolute least, is honor that sacrifice by refusing to let cruelty become normal. By refusing to let the gutter become the standard. By refusing to sit down, scroll past, and let history record that we saw this moment clearly, and did nothing.

Our children are watching.

Generations not yet born are counting on decisions we make right now, in this hour, in this darkness.

We do not get to look away.

Rise. Fight. Restore.

Push.