As the nation reels from another devastating mass shooting—this time at a Mormon church in suburban Michigan—Republican leaders have remained notably silent following revelations that the gunman was a devoted Trump supporter who once proudly wore the label “Ultra MAGA.”
Thomas Jacob Sanford, a 40-year-old Marine veteran from Grand Blanc Township, plowed his pickup truck into a local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Sunday before opening fire on worshippers. Ten people were shot. Four are dead. The church was later engulfed in flames after Sanford used an accelerant to set it ablaze. Two of the victims died from gunshot wounds, and two more bodies were recovered from the debris.
Police say Sanford was killed in a gunfight with officers just eight minutes after the first shots rang out. The FBI is treating the case as “an act of targeted violence,” though a motive has not yet been confirmed.
But as photos and social media posts surfaced showing Sanford in a camouflage Trump 2020 shirt that read “Make Liberals Cry Again,” and a Trump-Pence sign still visible on his front lawn just months ago, the political implications became harder to ignore.
So far, Republican leaders have said nothing.
While President Donald Trump briefly commented that “The epidemic of violence in our country must end, immediately,” he made no mention of the attacker’s political affiliations—or that the attack took place inside a religious institution tied to a traditionally conservative base.
Sanford, known to friends and neighbors as “Jake,” served in Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was a sergeant in the Marines and received several medals before leaving the service in 2008. After the military, he held various jobs, including snow removal, landscaping, and driving trucks for Coca-Cola.
A father to a 10-year-old boy with a rare genetic disorder, Sanford once told a local paper, “Don’t ever take having healthy kids for granted. We are proud of our child. I spent four years in the Marine Corps and was in Iraq, and this is still the most unique thing to deal with.”
That man—who once appealed to the public through a GoFundMe to help pay for his son’s medical care—returned this week in headlines as a mass shooter. Police are still combing through his home and personal history, trying to understand what drove him to storm a church with an assault rifle, torch it, and take innocent lives.
A classmate, Ryan Lopez, saw Sanford just two weeks before the shooting. “He was happy to see me, he just seemed normal,” Lopez told The New York Times.
But online, Sanford was increasingly defined by hard-right imagery. Alongside his pro-Trump gear and hunting photos, neighbors described him as both friendly and distant. “He seemed like a nice guy. Something must have happened, snapped somehow,” said Randy Thronson, who hadn’t spoken with Sanford in two years.
Authorities have not publicly connected Sanford’s political identity to his actions. Still, the silence from GOP officials has stood in stark contrast to their usual vocal condemnations—particularly when shooters are linked to non-conservative ideologies.
Sunday’s massacre is the latest in a growing string of politically charged acts of violence across the country. In recent weeks, prominent Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah, and a shooting erupted at a Texas immigration facility. Just last month, a gunman opened fire in a Catholic church and school in Minnesota, killing two children during Mass.
But even as these events multiply, the response from national Republican leadership has remained muted—especially when the attackers appear to come from within their own ideological base.
Founded in 1830, the Mormon Church now has more than 17 million members worldwide. It is deeply rooted in American conservatism, making the silence surrounding the Grand Blanc Township shooting all the more unsettling.
Michigan State Police Lt. Kim Vetter told reporters, “We can’t come to those kinds of conclusions for some time,” when asked about Sanford’s motive. Investigators confirmed that gasoline was used to start the fire and that suspected explosive devices were recovered, though it’s unclear whether they were deployed.
A church van and the charred remains of Sanford’s pickup truck were left smoldering outside as emergency teams searched through the ashes for victims.
Four families are now mourning the dead. Eight others are recovering from bullet wounds. A house of worship is gone. And yet, from those who often speak loudest about “law and order,” “American values,” and “defending religious freedom,” there has been barely a word.
