‘It feels like a threat’: Trump Jr uses wall of guns as backdrop for video attacking teacher unions

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Donald Trump Jr has drawn criticism for using a display of guns as the backdrop for a video attacking teachers’ unions, with some calling the choice particularly tasteless “in the era of school shootings” and others suggesting it resembles the sort of video posted by “extremists”.

On Sunday, Mr Trump shared a video entitled “These teachers unions are out of control” in which he criticised unions for speaking out against opening schools with the Covid pandemic still raging.

With the US poised to cross half a million Covid deaths on Monday, the son of former president Donald Trump called union opposition to schools reopening “all political”.

“Teachers unions and those representing them have definitely failed our children in terms of education and everything else... certainly failed the science they are supposed to be teaching us… it is all political,” Don Jr said in the video.

Teachers' unions have cautioned against returning to schools without vaccinations in place or other safety protocols.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), said that the video “feels like a threat” coming not long after the anniversary of the Parkland school massacre.

“First, in the era of school shootings, it’s in really bad taste for Don Jr. to attack teachers on front of a wall full of guns. It’s gross. It feels like a threat in this climate. And right on the heels of the Parkland anniversary,” she tweeted.

David Weissman, an ex-Republican US Army veteran who identifies himself as a former Trump supporter and liberal democrat, said: “Why are conservatives silent about this terrorist when they would be outraged if this same video would have been done by a Muslim.”

Journalist Aaron Rupar commented that the rant from the former president’s son, in his typical style of hyped-up rhetoric, made the message look and sound like an “extremist video posted from a bunker of an undisclosed location.”

Seth Abramson, a lawyer and a professor, tweeted: “Anyone else feel like each time we see a new video from Donald Trump Jr. he’s descended one sub-basement deeper into a subterranean cavern stocked to the ceiling on each floor with whatever it is that makes him sweaty, puffy, bloodshot-eyed, and prone to affecting a strange drawl?”

Mr Trump is not alone among conservatives in using guns as a backdrop for his videos. Republican Lauren Boebert, during a recent virtual House committee hearing, posed in front of firearms at her home.

Comedian and actor Matt Oswalt said he never understood why people display guns in the first place.

“As if they made them in their garage or whittled them on their front porch. You got them at Bass Pro Shops. Are we supposed to be impressed? I bought thermal socks there once but I didn’t nail them to my f***ing wall,” Mr Oswalt tweeted.