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Jack Black’s Tenacious D partner Kyle Gass is being criticized for a joke he made about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump hours after the incident.
The comedy rock duo performed at the ICC Sydney Theatre in Australia on Saturday (July 13) after the former president was shot in the ear earlier that day during his rally in Pennsylvania.
In honor of Gass’ 64th birthday, which fell on Sunday, July 14, Black, 54, presented him with a cake onstage.
“Make a wish”, the School of Rock can be heard talking to Gass in footage shared on TikTok.
As Gass blew out the candles, he said, “Don’t miss Trump next time.”
One of the audience said Yahoo News that “you could hear a few ‘oohhs’ – a kind of premature feeling – but most of it was laughter.”
On social media, many users condemned Gass’ joke, considering it to be in poor taste.
“Promoting the assassination of a political figure is downright disgusting,” one person wrote on TikTok.
“We are so sorry that we are so disappointed and have so little respect for someone’s life and family,” said another. “What if it had been a family member who had been shot?”
“Not funny,” said a third.
“A father died protecting his daughter and others were injured, these people are disgusting,” someone else wrote on X.
Trump was speaking at a political rally over the weekend when he was shot by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks in an attempt to assassinate the former president.
Crooks, who was registered as a Republican, fired eight shots, killing one person in the crowd and wounding at least two others, in addition to Trump, before he himself was killed by a sniper.
The shooter’s motive is still unclear, but the FBI is currently investigating the shooting as a possible act of domestic terrorism.
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In his first interview after the incident, Trump said The New York Post that he “should be dead.”
“The doctor at the hospital said he’d never seen anything like it, he called it a miracle,” he said. “I shouldn’t be here, I should be dead. I should be dead.”
Later that night, country singer Jason Aldean dedicated his controversial 2023 hit “Try That in a Small Town” to his “friend” Trump.
“It just goes to show that there’s a lot of bullshit in the world, and that’s what this song was about, so this is for the Pres,” Aldean told the crowd.