Alex Thomas
Author Stephen King said the crash of an Amtrak train carrying Republican lawmakers to a West Virginia retreat was “karma.”
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A trainload of Republicans on their way to a pricey retreat hit a garbage truck. My friend Russ calls that karma.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 1, 2018
The train was winding through the mountains of Virginia when it collided with a garbage truck on Wednesday, killing the driver. No passengers aboard the train suffered major injuries. Some lawmakers, including Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) rushed to help the victims in the truck. One of the injured was airlifted to the hospital.
The driver of the garbage truck did die from the crash.
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King’s tweet earned plenty of backlash from online critics. The Hill’s Joe Concha called it a “cheap political shot” and Piers Morgan wrote “a man died in that crash, you despicable man.”
Soon after, King tweeted out an apology:
Of COURSE sorry the truck driver died.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 1, 2018
The famous scribbler isn’t the only Twitter user to crack a joke in bad taste about the train crash; on Wednesday, Bernie Sanders surrogate Jonathan Tasini wrote “God is working hard today to clean up the stink.”
King has been an outspoken critic of the current administration and Republicans. In June, after months of haranguing, Trump finally blocked King on Twitter. Later in the summer, King wrote that he was “blocking” Trump from seeing the film “It,” which is based off one of King’s best-selling novels. For good measure, he followed up with “go float yourself.”
