Trump Notes Dayton Shooter Had History of Supporting Antifa, Elizabeth Warren

President Donald Trump walks to Air Force One as he departs Joint Airbase Andrews, Md., on July 30, 2019. Andrew Caballero-Reyholds/AFP/Getty Images

President Donald Trump noted that the alleged Dayton, Ohio, shooter expressed support for Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in addition to the far-left extremist group, Antifa.

Trump quoted a One America News segment on Aug. 7, on Twitter: “‘Meanwhile, the Dayton, Ohio, shooter had a history of supporting political figures like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and ANTIFA.’ @OANN I hope other news outlets will report this as opposed to Fake News. Thank you!” he wrote.

Trump noted the connection again while speaking to reporters before leaving the White House to visit Dayton on Wednesday.

“If you look at Dayton, that was the person that supported, I guess you would say, Bernie Sanders I understood, Antifa, I understand, Elizabeth Warren, I understood. It had nothing to do with President Trump,” he said. “I don’t blame Elizabeth Warren, I don’t blame Bernie Sanders, in the case of Ohio—I don’t blame anybody. These are sick people, these are really people who are mentally ill, who are disturbed. It’s a mental problem.”

Connor Betts, 24, described himself as a socialist, was a registered Democrat, and said he supported Warren. He also said he was pro-Satan, promoted gun control, and said he supported Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s use of the term “concentration camps” to describe immigration detention centers at the southern border.

Neither Warren nor Sanders have commented on the alleged shooter’s support for them.

According to the Dayton Daily News, Betts was seen carrying a gun and protesting at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Dayton in May where a group of Antifa extremists showed up to protest. Betts wore a bandana obscuring part of his face, as Antifa members and supporters like to do, and spoke briefly with a reporter in the crowd.

Betts also shared a slew of posts from media outlets and reporters that are openly opposed to Trump and conservatives, such as Some More News, Ben Collins of NBC, and Will Sommer of the Daily Beast. As an example of the anti-Trump content, one post by Some More News claimed that Trump wanted to “shoot migrants at the border.”

The FBI said on Tuesday that it was opening an investigation into the “violent ideologies” of the Dayton shooter.

“Our investigation with Dayton police is ongoing, we have not made any final investigative conclusions into the motive of the shooter or if he was assisted by any other people in this attack,” Special Agent Todd Wickerham, head of the FBI’s office in Cincinnati, said at a press conference. “However, we have uncovered evidence throughout the course of our investigation that the shooter was exploring violent ideologies. Based on this evidence, we’re initiating an FBI investigation, side-by-side with the Dayton police homicide investigation, to make sure we get to the bottom and we explore everything and we try to understand the best we can why this horrific attack happened.”

Betts’s ex-girlfriend said this week that he showed her a video of a mass shooting on their first date but that they kept going out.

Connor Betts in pictures he posted to Twitter. @iamthespookster/Twitte

The firearm used by the shooter Connor Betts, 22, is projected on a screen during a press conference about a mass shooting that left multiple people dead and 26 injured along the 400 block of E. Fifth Street, in Dayton, Ohio, on Aug. 4, 2019. Albert Cesare/The Cincinnati Enquirer via AP

Bodies are removed from at the scene of a mass shooting Aug. 4, 2019, in Dayton, Ohio. AP Photo/John Minchillo

She described a number of “red flags.” The final straw was Betts taking her to deliver a note to one of his ex-girlfriends.

Another former girlfriend said Betts told her he suffered from psychosis since he was young and was concerned that he would become schizophrenic.

“He would cry to me sometimes, saying how he’s afraid of himself and afraid he was going to hurt someone one day. It’s haunting now,” Lyndsi  Doll told The Washington Post.

She said that during Betts’s senior year he regularly ingested caffeine pills and energy drinks and told her he couldn’t sleep because he was tormented by dark shadows at night.