White House counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka accused a CNN anchor of pushing a political agenda after she sought to downplay the number of gender-divergent mass shooters following the Minneapolis Catholic school massacre.
CNN host Brianna Keilar asked whether Mr. Gorka should be raising alarm about the Minneapolis shooter’s opposite-sex gender identity, given that federal crime data shows 96% of mass attacks from 2016-2020 were committed by “non-trans men.”
“I know you’re focusing on the shooter being trans,” Ms. Keilar said Sunday on “State of the Union.”
“The shooter was trans, and that is certainly of note. But are you missing the bigger picture here when you zero in on that, instead of more broadly these school shooters as an epidemic, and you perhaps miss the through line that connects them all?” she asked.
Mr. Gorka responded that “you are distorting the facts,” pointing out that many shootings with four or more victims are gang-related, not ideologically driven, and that most gun deaths are suicides.
“So let’s concentrate on mass shootings at schools, specifically Christian or Catholic schools. Then the data set is wholly different,” he said. “So don’t conflate different data sets just to make a political point.”
Ms. Keilar said that three of 32 school shootings since 2020 were committed by transgender attackers by CNN’s count, prompting Mr. Gorka to take issue with the cable news network’s record for accuracy.
“Forgive me if I don’t go with CNN’s stats, OK?” he said. “CNN has proven itself to be wholly inaccurate in all kinds of things for the last 10 years, perpetrators of the Russia, Russia hoax and that we didn’t have an open border. So please forgive me if I don’t take your stats for granted.”
He said that in the last few years, “we have seen seven mass shootings involving people of transgender nature or who are confused in their gender – seven in just the last couple of years. That’s inordinately high.”
🚨 WOW! This CNN host just tried to DOWNPLAY the attacks on Christians in America and White House official Sebastian Gorka expertly shut it down. pic.twitter.com/UtXLrFNGus
“Mass sh*otings at schools – CHRISTIAN or CATHOLIC schools – the data set is wholly different. Don’t conflate…
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 31, 2025
The Minneapolis shooter, a biological male born Robert Westman, underwent a legal name change to Robin Westman in 2020 at age 17. The reason given on the court document was that the “minor child … identifies as female and wants her name to reflect that identification.”
The shooting suspect was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after opening fire Wednesday on Annunciation Catholic School, killing two children and injuring 18 people.
The day after the Minneapolis shooting, Mr. Gorka posted on X a list of seven attacks carried out by transgender, gender-divergent, or possibly gender-divergent shooters since 2018.
“Patterns matter,” said Mr. Gorka on X. “We will not ignore the threat to the innocent.”
Patterns matter.
We will not ignore the threat to the innocent.
• In 2023, Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old identifying as transgender, carried out a
deadly shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, killing six people, including three children.
• In 2019, Maya… pic.twitter.com/n6coXNQV9a
– Sebastian Gorka DRG (@sebgorka) August 28, 2025
He and other conservatives have raised alarm about the potential confluence between gender ideology, mental health and violence, while mainstream media outlets have accused the right of seeking to demonize people who identify as the opposite sex.
“No, there is not an ‘epidemic’ of shootings by transgender people,” said USA Today in a Friday headline.
The New York Times ran a story Friday headlined: “Conservatives Use Shooting in Anti-Transgender Campaigns.”
Mr. Gorka called for paying attention to “early warning signals” and providing “off-ramps” for those struggling with mental-health issues.
“I find it hard to believe that an individual goes from getting his mother to sign a change-of-name certificate at age 17, and then just a handful of years later is mowing down innocent children in a church pew during a Catholic mass, and nobody realized there was a problem,” he said.
He stressed that “it’s not about the sexual proclivities of the individual. It’s the fact that nobody seems to notice a very disturbing pattern toward violence.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat, who appeared on CNN after the Gorka interview, said that “this is not the moment to point fingers at people.”
“It is important for us to make sure that we are offering a slew of solutions,” she said. “One is to make sure that we are getting rid of assault weapons in our community, two, that we are addressing mental health issues if there are some.”
Ms. Omar and other Minnesota Democrats held a press conference Thursday calling for state and federal prohibitions on “assault rifles” and large-capacity magazines.