Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that politicians and political commentators who have condemned prayer in the wake of a mass shooting in Minnesota should “get new politics.”

In an appearance on Fox News, Vance ripped into those who have mocked or dismissed calls for prayer to help deal with tragedy. The vice president said that people who have targeted prayer after a gunman killed two children at Annunciation Catholic School’s church on Wednesday morning have “something very wrong” with their souls.

“If you are a politician or you’re a media commentator and two beautiful babies just got murdered while praying, and your politics force you to condemn prayer in response to it, you ought to get new politics because something very wrong has gone on inside your soul,” said Vance, who is a Catholic.

.@VP: “If you are a politician or you’re a media commentator and two beautiful babies just got murdered while praying, and your politics force you to condemn prayer in response to it, you ought to get new politics because something very wrong has gone on inside your soul.” pic.twitter.com/ukwAIWdBbs

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 28, 2025

A number of left-wing politicians and commentators have downplayed prayer in the wake of the shooting. Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who served in the Biden administration, said in a post on X: “Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does (sic) not end school shootings. prayers (sic) do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.”

Minneapolis Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday dismissed “thoughts and prayers” during a news conference after the shooting.

“Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now, these kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school, they were in a church,” Frey said. “These are kids that should be learning with their friends. They should be playing on the playground. They should be able to go to school or church in peace without the fear or risk of violence.”

California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom echoed Frey’s sentiment in a post on X that targeted White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who defended prayer in reaction to Psaki’s comment.

“These children were literally praying as they got shot at,” Newsom wrote.

Annunciation Catholic Church invited prayer in an open letter to the general public on Wednesday evening, asking for support as the community grapples with the deadly attack.

“Please lift up these families and these children in prayer and surround them and each other with your love during this difficult time,” the school’s principal, Matthew DeBoer, and the church’s pastor, Father Dennis Zehren, wrote.

Wikipedia’s editors’ forum filled with infighting Wednesday over the appropriate way to refer to a transgender-identifying shooter who killed two children at a Minneapolis Catholic school.

Soon after Robin Westman attacked Annunciation Catholic School’s church in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning, a small band of Wikipedia editors began to police the online encyclopedia’s article on the shooting, according to Pirate Wires.

The changes started with an editor identified as SuperPianoMan9167 swapping all instances where the shooter was referred to as a male for female terms. The editor also deleted all instances that referred to Westman’s birth name, Robert, arguing that to bring up the name Westman used before he began to identify as female is “deadnaming” and against Wikipedia policy.

“Wikipedia does not include someone’s birth name, even if it is sourced, unless they were notable under that name; to do otherwise is deadnaming,” SuperPianoMan9167 wrote. The anonymous editor said the risk of deadnaming applies to the shooter’s pronouns, as well.

The edits received pushback.

“[The birth name] is in the headline of arguably the most famous and reputable newspaper in the world [The Times]. To expunge it from WP is so absurd as to warrant invoking WP:IGNORE,” an editor identified as Ergo Sum said, referring to Wikipedia’s stance that any rule that “prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia” in a certain circumstance should be ignored.

Editors tried to argue that they were making principled arguments around Wikipedia policy that should not be understood as expressing sympathy for a transgender-identifying mass shooter.

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“It doesn’t matter how insensitive it is (trust me, I think she was a terrible human being); it’s Wikipedia’s job to get the facts straight. If she identified as a female, then that’s what what [sic] Wikipedia should reflect, no matter how disgusting of a person someone is,” an editor identified as EF5 wrote.

As of this writing, Wikipedia’s article on the shooting does not mention the shooter’s birth name, Robert, and exclusively uses female pronouns to refer to the shooter. There is only one mention of Westman as “transgender.”

Another topic of debate stemmed from the FBI’s decision to investigate the shooting as a hate crime.

“I get the antisemitism part, but last I checked, Catholics are not a protected minority, or even just a minority for that matter, so the ‘hate crime’ classification does not apply,” an editor that goes by the online name 46.97.170.26 said.

An editor identified as Unknown Template responded: “The FBI classes hate crimes against any identifiable group, including, shock horror, even Christians and *gasp* white people.”

Unknown Template and others who argued in favor of the hate crime designation appear to have won that argument. The article mentions that the FBI is investigating the shooting as an “act of domestic terrorism and an anti-Catholic hate crime.”

Westman attacked Annunciation Catholic School on Wednesday morning as students and staff attended mass in the school’s church. Westman fired through the church’s windows from the parking lot, killing two students and injuring 17 others. Westman later turned his gun on himself, according to police.

Westman catalogued his extensive hate against Catholics, Jews, Donald Trump, and himself in writings, pictures, and videos. In one entry, Westman wrote that he came to regret his transgender identity.

“I only keep [long hair] because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans. I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brain-washed myself,” Westman wrote.

“I can’t cut my hair now as it would be [an] embarrassing defeat, and it might be a concerning change of character that could get me reported,” he continued. “It just always gets in my way. I will probably chop it on the day of the attack.”