WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump defended his order that flags be lowered to half-staff after last week's slaying of conservative activist Charlie Kirk by suggesting he would have done the same following the assassination of a Minnesota Democratic state lawmaker this summer had he been asked by the state's governor.

That's despite Trump saying at the time that he had no interest in calling Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz .

During an unrelated Oval Office event where he announced that he was deploying the National Guard to Memphis , Trump was asked why he signed an order lowering flags nationwide after Kirk's killing during an event in Utah, but didn't do so after former Democratic state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot and killed in June.

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