Actor Jack Black bandmate faces flak after joke on Donald Trump assassination attempt

Actor Jack Black’s band, Tenacious D, has come under fire after his bandmate and fellow actor Kyle Gass made a joke about former US President Donald Trump’s assassination attempt last week.

The incident occurred when Black and Gass were performing at the ICC Sydney Theatre in Australia on July 13, the day when a bullet grazed Trump’s ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, The Independent reported.

In a video that went viral on social media, Black, 54, presented Gass with a cake on stage. He wished him a happy birthday before asking him to “make a wish”. In response, Gass blew out the candles on the cake and said, “Don’t miss Trump next time”, drawing laughs and applause from the audience.

Gass’s remarks were condemned by several people on social media.

“Promoting murder of a political figure is absolutely disgusting,” one person wrote on TikTok.

“So sorry we have such disappointment and disrespect for anyone’s life and family. What if it had been your family member shot at?” another said.

A third person wrote, “Not funny.”

“A father died protecting his daughter and others were injured during it. These people are disgusting,” another person wrote on X.

The shooter, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was a registered Republican. He killed one supporter and injured two others, besides Trump, at the Pennsylvania rally, before being killed by a sniper.

The gunman’s motive was not known and the FBI is currently investigating the shooting as a possible act of domestic terrorism.

Trump, reflecting back on the incident, said he was “supposed to be dead”.

Calling it a “surreal experience”, the 78-year-old Republican told The New York Post that he felt that he had been saved “by luck or by God”.