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Donald Trump Tweeted About Less Than a Quarter of Those 78 ‘Underreported’ Terrorist Attacks

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In keeping with its tradition of lambasting the press, the White House last week released a list of 78 terrorist attacks from September 2014 and December 2016 to which it claimed journalists had not paid enough attention. The widely-covered shootings in San Bernardino and at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the attacks in Paris on cafes and the Bataclan theater, and the Brussels airport bombing were among the 78 incidents. “It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported,” the president nonetheless told U.S. Central Command. “And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.”

The White House’s typo-ridden list leaves out a lot: the trail of blood and misery left by Boko Haram across Nigeria, and any attacks in Iraq or Syria. It also doesn’t include attacks perpetrated by white supremacists or other right-wing lunatics like Dylann Roof, who executed nine people at a black church in South Carolina, or Robert Dear, who calls himself a “warrior for babies” and murdered three people at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado in late 2015.

The Trump White House’s release of this list is an attempt to boost the American people’s latent Islamophobia that unwittingly puts Trump’s hypocrisy on display; journalists weren’t the ones ignoring so many of these attacks—Trump was. For better or for worse, this is the sort of thing that gets journalists’ hackles up. In response, the New York Times and the Washington Post published extensive accountings of their coverage of the listed events, and CNN’s Jake Tapper played Kellyanne Conway clips of himself and his colleagues traveling around the world to report on the attacks. In contrast, Trump used his favorite platform, Twitter, to discuss only a fraction of the terror attacks he claims journalists ignored.

Here are some highlights from what he was tweeting about instead, during those 78 incidents:

2014

1. On September 24, 2014, the date of a knife attack that wounded two police officers in Melbourne, Australia, Trump was retweeting people encouraging him to run for president. He also tweeted:

2. Also on September 24, a French citizen was beheaded in Tizi Ouzou, Algeria. Shortly afterwards Trump wrote:

And took time to antagonize Rosie O’Donnell:

3. A month later, on October 21, one soldier was killed and one wounded in a vehicle attack in Quebec. Trump didn’t tweet about it. He tweeted:

4. On October 22, another Canadian soldier was killed at the War Memorial in Ottawa. Trump tweeted the following cartoon:

Two days later, he tweeted praise for then-Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper:

5. On October 23, New York City police officers killed a man after he attacked them with a hatchet. Trump tweeted quite a bit, including:

6. On November 22, a Danish citizen was shot in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Trump retweeted a bunch of people who supported his run for president, and tweeted some food for thought:

7. On December 1, a U.S. citizen was killed in a public restroom at a shopping mall in Abu Dhabi. Trump was back to retweeting people encouraging him to run for president and criticizing Rosie O’Donnell:

8. On December 15, an armed man took hostages at a cafe in Sydney, Australia—three people were killed, including the captor. Trump was tweeting praise for the CIA and complaints about public service announcements:

9. On December 23, a French man attacked a police station, stabbing three officers with a knife before he was killed, Trump was once again retweeting encouragement from supporters expressing their hope that he would run for president.

2015

10. On January 7, terrorists killed 17 people in a series of attacks that began at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, and ended in a hostage situation at a Kosher supermarket. Trump weighed in:

A few hours later, though, he was back to his usual routine, including this message about Smokey Bear:

11. On January 27, five ISIS-Libya militants killed ten people, including one U.S. citizen, in a Tripoli hotel popular with Westerners. Trump had nothing to say about it. He did say this, though:

12. The White House list includes a January 2015 shooting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in which two U.S. citizens were wounded; however, as the Guardian notes, there was no shooting in Riyadhmatching this description. In any case, here is the only tweet Trump sent that month about Saudi Arabia:

13. On February 3, two French soldiers were wounded in a knife attack at a Jewish community center in Nice. Trump was tweeting about “illegals” being vaccinated and ISIS beheading people.

14. On February 15, two people were killed in a shooting at a free-speech rally at a synagogue in Copenhagen. Among other topics, Trump was tweeting about The Apprentice:

15. On March 18, the day two Islamic State militants killed 21 people and wounded 55 others at the National Bardo Museum in Tunisia, Trump announced his presidential exploratory committee.

16. The White House lists an apparent April attack in which a U.S. citizen was wounded in a knife attack in Karachi, Pakistan, by Islamic State militants. There is no report of such an attack, although an American woman was shot and wounded in Karachi that month. Regardless, Trump’s only terror-related tweet that month was a link to a false item about an ISIS setting up a training camp in Mexico:

17. On April 21, terrorists targeted Catholic churches and a civilian was killed in a shooting in France; Trump tweeted this:

18. Later that month, one police officer was killed and two wounded in a shooting at a station in Zvornik, Bosnia; Trump was too preoccupied with “thugs” to notice:

19. In early May 2015, police killed a gunman at an exhibition of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in Garland, Texas. (One security guard was wounded.) Trump did weigh in on this one:

20. In June, law enforcement officers killed Usaama Rahim, a U.S. citizen, after he attacked a Boston cop with a knife. Trump had nothing to say about it, instead tweeting some of his favorite advice for entrepreneurs:

21 and 22. In the middle of June, Egypt was hit with a spate of terror attacks targeting the tourism industry, although casualties were limited. He was silent on this as well. During this time, he used his twitter account to criticize Gizmodo’s parent company, Univision:

23. Trump tweeted nothing about the 38 people were killed and 39 wounded in a shooting on a beach in Sousse, Tunisia, on June 26. His feud with Univision continued in the days following the attack:

24. Also on June 26, after a delivery man with ties to radical Islamist groups decapitated his boss and drove his truck into an American-owned chemical plant near Lyon, Trump didn’t tweet about it. Here’s what he tweeted instead:

25. Early on July 11, an ISIS car bomb detonated outside the Italian Consulate in Cairo, killing one person. Trump did not tweet about it.

26. The White House listed the August 12 execution of a Croatian hostage by ISIS militants as occurring in July, 2015. Regardless, he didn’t tweet about it, but had this message:

27. Trump did thank the Americans who foiled an attack on a train in France on August 21:

28. On September 3, after six international peacekeepers, including four American soldiers, were wounded in a bombing attack orchestrated by ISIS in Egypt. Judging from his tweets, in the days following, Trump paid it no mind, but tweeted:

29. On September 28, an Italian aid worker was killed in Bangladesh and Trump tweeted:

30. From this point forward, the White House list misspelled “attacker.” On September 30, a Danish police officer was stabbed in Copenhagen by a Palestinian man whose asylum application had been rejected. Trump tweeted:

31. This attack never seems to have happened, which could explain why Trump was not focused on tweeting about it:

32. A 15-year-old boy from Iran killed an accountant who worked at the New South Wales Police Force in Australia on October 2, when Trump was tweeting:

33. On October 3, a Japanese man was fatally shot in Bangladesh. Trump tweeted lots of things, including this jab at Bush and Rubio:

34. On October 31, the Islamic State brought down a Russian airliner over Hasanah, Egypt, killing 224 people. Trump tweeted, but not about that:

35. On November 4, police killed a University of California-Merced student after he wounded four in what the FBI deemed an ISIS-inspired “lone wolf” knife attack. Trump tweeted nothing about the attack, although he did tweet about, yes, Jeb and Marco:

36. A little more than a week later, on November 13, 129 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in a series of shootings and bombings outside the Stade de France and at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris. This, at least, did not escape the candidate’s attention:

Although not for long:

37. On November 18, an Italian missionary was wounded in a shooting Bangladesh and Trump tweeted:

38. The White House lists a “December, 2015” “attak” in Bosnia, which probably is supposed to refer to the November 18 event in which a gunman on the outskirts of Sarajevo committed suicide after killing two Bosnian police officers. The day after these deaths, Trump tweeted:

39. Fourteen people were killed and 21 wounded in a series of shootings in San Bernardino, California—which the Trump administration misspelled as “San Bernadino”—on December 2. This attack, like the November 13 attack in Paris, is ludicrous inclusion on a list of underreported terror attacks. But Trump did tweet about these events:

40. Two days later, on December 5, three people were wounded in a knife attack in London. After four days, Trump tweeted a link to a Daily Mail story about his claim that British police were afraid to wear their uniforms.

41. Trump did not tweet about the December 30 shooting in the Russian Caucasus that left one person dead and 10 wounded just before the New Year. He tweeted from the campaign trail, writing:

2016

42. It’s unclear what the White House is referring to here: There was a drive-by shooting outside a Cairo hotel on January 7, although no one was injured. In the following days, suspected ISIS militants were killed before an assault on tourists at an Egyptian holiday resort, and a police a police officer and a soldier were killed outside Cairo. Trump did not tweet about any of this. Here’s something he did tweet:

43. Trump did tweet about the failed knife attack in Paris, on January 7:

On January 15 Trump tweeted:

This may be in reference to deadly attack on a hotel in Ouagadougou, in Burkina Faso, but this attack was not listed in the White House’s list of underreported terror attacks. Two days later, he tweeted:

This may be a reference to the Deir ez-Zor massacre, when at least 85 civilians were killed during an ISIS offensive in Syria. The events in Syria were also not included in the White House list.

44. Trump did not address the January 8 non-lethal shooting of a Philadelphia police officer by a man who claimed to have been inspired by ISIS. Instead, he tweeted about his poll numbers:

45. Again, it’s unclear what the White House is attempting to describe: Three people—two Austrians and a Swede—were stabbed at a resort in Hurghada on January 8, and the perpetrator was killed. Trump tweeted this, on that day:

46. On January 11, Trump didn’t tweet about this. He tweeted about this:

47. Nine German tourists were killed in a suicide bombing in Istanbul on January 12, which the Turkish government said the Islamic State was responsible for. Trump live-tweeted Obama’s State of the Union address

48. The January 14 Jakarta attacks were covered extensively—though not by Trump, who was tweeting about Iran:

49. Trump did not tweet about the February 11 machete attack that injured four people in Columbus, Ohio. He did tweet about how much money Weak Jeb and Lyin’ Ted were spending:

50. Trump did not tweet about the February 26 knife attack in which a German police officer was wounded. He did tweet this:

51. Trump did not tweet about the March 19 suicide bombing in Istanbul that left at least four dead and dozens more wounded. He did tweet about the protesters disrupting his rallies around that time:

52. A few days later, on March 25, at least 31 people were killed in a pair of coordinated suicide bombings in Brussels that targeted its airport and subway. Trump tweeted this:

53. On April 16, three people were injured in a bomb blast at a Sikh temple in Germany. Trump was tweeting about his poll numbers.

54. On June 12, the United States experienced the worst mass shooting by a single perpetrator in the country’s history: the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, another incident that was covered extensively. “Horrific incident in FL,” Trump tweeted. “Praying for all the victims & their families. When will this stop? When will we get tough, smart & vigilant?” And then:

55. On June 13, one police officer and one civilian were killed in a knife attack in Magnanville, France. Trump:

56. When fourteen people were killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul on June 20, Trump did not tweet about it. The next day, he tweeted almost exclusively about Hillary Clinton.

57. On June 28, 45 people were killed and 240 wounded in a triple-suicide attack on Istanbul’s main airport. Trump acknowledged this with a tweet:

58. On July 1, 22 people were killed—including one American—and 50 wounded in an hours-long siege in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Trump did not bring any attention to this, although he did send several tweets about an American girl killed in Israel by a “Palestinian terrorist.”

59. On July 14, scores of civilians were killed in a truck attack in Nice, France, which dominated the news cycle so extensively that Trump acknowledged it and even delayed his VP announcement:

60. On July 18, four people were wounded in an ax attack aboard a train in Germany. Trump was distracted, trying to do damage control following revelations that his wife had plagiarized aspects of her Republican National Convention speech from Michelle Obama:

61. On July 24, twelve people were wounded in a suicide bombing at a music festival, also in Germany. Meanwhile, Trump was gloating about the DNC hack:

62. Trump did not miss this opportunity to leverage the July 26 murder of a French priest:

63. Two Belgian police officers were wounded in a machete attack on August 6, if he was broken up about it, it only took him one day to get back to complaining about the media:

64. The White House’s list includes a double murder that took place in Australia on August 23, despite the fact that officials have repeatedly said that extremism was not a factor in the killings. Regardless, Trump didn’t tweet about it, but offered some of his signature media criticism instead:

65. The White House list also includes a September shooting in “Denmakr”, which we’ll take to mean the August 31 shooting in Denmark, in which two police officers and a civilian were wounded. The attacker was killed, and ISIS has claimed responsibility, but the incident may have been drug related. In any case, Trump was thinking about other things:

66. Trump did not tweet about it when one police officer was injured in a raid following a failed car bombing at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in early September. He tweeted a lot during this time, though, including about his poll numbers:

67. A civilian was injured in a knife attack in Sydney, Australia on September 11. Trump did not tweet about it, posting a single tweet that day:

68. Trump did not tweet about the stabbing of 10 people at a mall in Minnesota on September 17 until a day later. On the day of the attack, Trump shared his thoughts on the New York Times:

69. The bombing in New York City on September 17 did merit a few tweets. This was also the first mention of the attack in Minnesota:

70. When two police officers were stabbed in Brussels on October 5, Trump was silent on the matter, preferring to tweet about poll numbers and rallies instead.

71. Following a failed attack on American soldiers in Kuwait on October 8, Trump didn’t mention the attack, but he had some thoughts for the media:

72. An October 11 botched arson attack on a mosque in Sweden claimed by ISIS did not merit a tweet, but he did say:

73. On October 16, a 16-year-old boy was killed in a knife attack in Germany. Trump was tweeting about Hillary Clinton’s State Department and the unfairness of the recent debate:

74. On November 28, law enforcement officials disposed of a suspected bomb near the U.S. embassy in Manila. The president-elect didn’t tweet about it.

75. Trump did not initially address the fourteen people wounded in a knife attack in Columbus, Ohio on November 28. Instead, he was tweeting about how he would have won the popular vote if he had actually needed to, and also threatened to imprison flag burners:

Two days later, he addressed the attack in Ohio:

76. Trump did not tweet about a November 30 incident outside the U.S. embassy in Chad, which the White House included on its list but which involved no casualties.

77. He did not tweet about the December 18 attack in Jordan in which seven Jordanian security officers, a Canadian tourist, and two Jordanian civilians were killed during an armed standoff inside a medieval castle in the city of Karak. Instead, he tweeted:

78. The president-elect gave a passing mention of the December 19 attack which 12 people were killed and 48 wounded when a truck drove through a holiday market in Berlin:

A half hour later, though, he was back on message:

This story was produced by Gizmodo Media Group’s Special Projects Desk. 

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