'Performative clown': GOP candidates slammed for assuming terrorism caused car explosion

They're eating terrorism crow.

Two Republican candidates seeking higher office were both shouting terrorism and publicly shamed.

GOP presidential candidate and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy jumped the terrorism gun — early after a car bulleted toward a U.S.-Canada bridge checkpoint and then smashed and blew up causing the deaths of two people.

Fox News quickly called the event a "terror attack" and said the car was "full of explosives."

They later backed off its claim of a "terror attack" and instead labeled the motive as "unclear."

"I’ve been saying it for a long time & will say it again: we must secure our *NORTHERN* border too," Ramaswamy wrote in a post on Twitter/X. "It’s the forgotten frontier of the border crisis in our country."

Kari Lake, the failed Arizona pro-Trump gubernatorial candidate who is now running for Senate, also shouted terrorism.

"This looks like at attempted terrorist attack along our Northern border," she tweeted. "Our worst fears are being realized. @JoeBiden's open border invites chaos & misery into our country."

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An hour later she changed her tune.

"Multiple outlets are walking back the initial reports of a terror attack," her follow-up an hour later reads. "While I mourn for the two men killed, I’m thankful this appears to have been a tragic accident. The sad reality is that an attack on this country seems inevitable with our border crisis. That MUST change."

At no point was it officially confirmed that the deadly incident at the Rainbow Bridge one day before the Thanksgiving holiday was a terroristic threat.

That didn't stop Ramaswamy or Lake from claiming straightaway, and without any validation, that the incident an attack by some kind of terroristic element. Ramaswamy soon clarified his statement, but not before he doubled down.

"One month ago, @GovChristie ridiculed me for demanding more security on the Northern Border: 'I don’t think you’ve heard anyone who knows anything ask for that.' Well, it’s radio silence from him today," Ramaswamy wrote. "The bipartisan establishment is filled with these clowns & it’s pathetic."

And critics came to give them a dose of humble pre-Thanksgiving pie.

GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie called out his rival.

"Radio silence from me because I have years of law enforcement experience fighting terrorists and crime and you do not. You jump to the conclusion it is terrorism without any definitive proof," Christie wrote on Wednesday. "This is why your judgment is so flawed and you’d be such an awful President. Here’s a hint for you: wait for the evidence and then make judgments. That’s what any experienced leader would do."

Heath Mayo, a conservative Christian lawyer warned Ramaswamy to rethink his attempt to run for president given his judgement to assume the incident in upstate New York was a terroristic act.

"If you fall for misreporting and jump to erroneous conclusions without the facts this quickly, why should anyone trust you to make major judgments as president," he asked in a tweet. "Spare the country, please. Take a job that doesn’t depend on your judgment."

And former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger (ret. R-IL) pressed Lake to remain a civilian and stay out of politics.

"Just a reminder that @KariLake was ready to change American policy and take a victory lap…. Before anything. Take a breath," his tweet from Wednesday reads. "But she is just a performative clown."