By The media knows who to blame for the latest assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
Donald Trump, of course.
Multiple media outlets have recently hosted discussions on the latest assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, with many commentators attributing the incident to the political climate, which they believe Trump himself has influenced.
This second attempt on Trump’s life occurred on Sunday, just two months after he narrowly survived a shooting at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, both incidents happening as he seeks the presidency once again. In response to the latest attack, MSNBC’s Alex Witt predicted significant “political fallout,” leading another analyst to suggest that both Republicans and Democrats should consider how to “take the temperature down,” reported The Washington Examiner.
Witt questioned whether the Trump campaign would address the need to reduce inflammatory rhetoric and violence, noting that such a move might be uncharacteristic of the former president. On NBC, anchor Lester Holt discussed the assassination attempt, highlighting the “increasingly fierce rhetoric” on the 2024 campaign trail. Holt pointed out that Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, have made “baseless claims about Haitian immigrants” in Springfield, Ohio, where bomb threats were reported over the weekend.
CNN, however, took the cake when it featured former FBI agent Tim Clemente, who, following Kamala Harris’ lead, argued that Trump’s campaign statements have contributed to the rise in political violence. Clemente specifically referenced Trump’s warning of a “bloodbath” as the reason for violence against him. Democrats have been called out for pushing the lie that Trump was talking about civil war rather than referring to what would happen to the auto industry if Kamala Harris wins.
Fmr FBI agent @timclemente: “Sadly, the finger-pointing at Trump has lead to — you know, the line about the bloodbath, talking about the auto industry, being used as if he’s going to create a bloody coup if he loses, that kind of the verbiage is something you use in a third-world… pic.twitter.com/6C9zIz0yT2
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 16, 2024
The Daily Caller writes that CNN’s former top political analyst has had enough.
“I think it is so stupid and counterproductive to spend time trying to downplay the fact that … two times there have been people trying to kill him over the last 90 days. We are not a country in which political violence can be condoned. And just because Donald Trump helped incite Jan. 6 does not make two wrongs equal a right, right?” Cillizza said. “We need to be better than that — not the same or worse. It is a bad thing that twice in 90 days the nominee of one of the two major parties was the victim or the focus of an attempted assassination, period.”
Trump was shot in his right ear during a July 13 assassination attempt during his rally in Butler Township, Pennsylvania, that left former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore dead. Some claimed following the assassination attempt that Trump got struck by glass fragments rather than a bullet, but the FBI clarified in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation that it was a bullet that hit the former president.
Cillizza said people questioning whether Trump was shot “are bringing ourselves down, way down, to a place that we don’t want to be as a nation.”
“Political violence is wrong, period, whether it’s against Donald Trump or anyone else. And yes, the attempt at political violence, even if this guy on Sunday didn’t fire any shots is wrong, period,” he added. “I just think there is so much as it comes to Donald Trump that is legitimate for criticism, for dislike and for a vote against that when you spend your time mired in these waters, you are doing a disservice, not just to yourself but to who we are as a people and to our democracy. So just stop doing it. Leave it be … You beat him at the ballot box, you don’t beat him by violence or the threat of violence.”
‘Just Stop’: Ex-CNN Analyst Unloads On People Downplaying Trump Assassination Attempts pic.twitter.com/bCUgqZDm0G
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 16, 2024
The Trump campaign has begun calling out Democrats for being the party of political violence.
Kamala Harris and the Democrats are the party of violence. pic.twitter.com/4ubdGff5Y4
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 16, 2024
The campaign has also posted a list of “receipts” laying out moments throughout the last few years in which Democrats have called for the former president to be “eliminated” or labeled him a “threat to democracy.”
The Trump campaign broke out every single receipt in the world. pic.twitter.com/e5M3wd4Bm8
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 16, 2024
The former president has a point, explains Noah Rothman at The National Review.
“The second attempt on Donald Trump’s life, which took place on Sunday afternoon, is just the latest event to call this ponderous assumption into question….That might shock the press, but finding a single Trump supporter who is surprised by Sunday’s news would be a struggle. The political media are constantly on the lookout for right-wing violence; but much of the “sustained spate of political violence” to which Americans have been treated over the course of this election cycle has come not from Trump’s supporters but from his opponents.
In July, the town of Hancock, Mich., was terrorized by a lone all-terrain vehicle driver who vandalized two cars adorned with Trump campaign paraphernalia before he descended on an 80-year-old man putting up pro-Trump yard signs on his property. The 22-year-old assailant proceeded to run that person over, putting him in critical condition, before eventually calling the police to confess his involvement in the attack and, subsequently, committing suicide.
The return of students to American campuses amid Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas has put an end to the summer respite provided weary observers of the anti-Israel mobs and the chaos that accompanies them. Two Jewish students were reportedly attacked late last month by a keffiyeh-clad assailant wielding a glass bottle. Last week, a pro-Israel demonstration in a Boston suburb turned violent when a man charged at the gathering, accusing its participants of supporting genocide against civilians. The attacker reportedly “tackled” one of the demonstrators, who shot his alleged assailant with the handgun he happened to be carrying.
The press most certainly should be on the lookout for conditions that can trigger our unstable neighbors to acts of violence — particularly when the stuff that might trigger them isn’t true. And yet, the political violence to which the public has been privy since this summer cannot be attributed to the American Right. Given their prohibitive focus on the potential for Trump supporters to once again lash out violently, it’s reasonable to conclude that this summer’s sequence of events would send political reporters into fits of catastrophism if it could be linked to the GOP. But because the gunmen, the vandals, and the assailants are of the Left, no tenuous connections are drawn or dots connected to impugn the political movement to which they are inclined.”
“There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL. Nothing will slow me down. I will never surrender. I will always love you for supporting me. Unity. Peace. Make America Great Again,” Trump said in an email to supporters following the latest attempt on his life.
[Read More: Trump Assassin Had Connections To Dems, Ukraine]
