CNN security analyst slams Trump for 'terrorism'
On CNN Thursday, national security analyst Juliette Kayyem doubled down on her characterization of former President Donald Trump's lies and incitement about the 2020 election being stolen as a form of terrorism.
"You tweeted this article, after the January 6th attacks, almost a year ago, saying this," said anchor John Avlon. "'As we gear up for 1/6 anniversary coverage, reposting my take then. Many criticized this for calling Trump the leader of a terror movement who uses violence or threat of it as an extension of politics. After a year, I think I was too kind.' If you think you were too kind to call him extremist leader then, what do you call him now?"
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"He uses violence or the threat of violence to disrupt democratic processes. That is terrorism," said Kayyem flatly. "We tend to focus on different pieces of the post-January 6th world. We have election systems and the fights over states and voting rights. We then have the investigation, the January 6th investigation, and then all the cases going on against people who were in the Capitol. But I think we sometimes forget that what sort of connects everything is violence and the threat of violence, that now animates so much of our political discourse coming from Republican leadership, from right-wing media."
"It's not just, you know, sort of random violence," added Kayyem. "It is targeted against secretaries of state, against various congresspeople. We see it percolate into the COVID space ... or language against leaders. And so it's that acceptance of violence and the threat of violence as part of a political agenda that I think I underestimated on January 6th."
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