As the U.S. grapples with a second assassination plot in three months, a former campaign adviser for Hillary Clinton lamented that Donald Trump has chosen to escalate rhetoric during a dangerous time where the country is a "tinderbox."
Speaking on a CNN panel Monday afternoon, Karen Finney told Wolf Blitzer that while not much is known about the motives behind the first attempted assassination and that we're still "learning' about the second, there is a common thread.
"It does seem to be clear in both instances these are people who had real trouble," she said. "I look at the record of the gentleman who was arrested yesterday and wonder how the hell was he able to buy a gun in this country?!"
Finney noted that the suspect, identified as Ryan Routh, was charged with having a weapon of mass destruction and who in North Carolina barricaded himself with a firearm.
"As an American, that concerns me," she said.
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Finney added that there's a lot that Trump said that she found "disappointing."
"Not the least of which, he is ascribing motive to two people [who] we don't know all their motivations just yet. And that is part of the problem," she said.
Finney later added: "We are sitting on a tinderbox, and unfortunately the last time we were sitting on a tinder box on January the 5th of 2021, we know what happened the next day. And rather than de-escalating, it's disappointing to hear a leader — someone who wants to be returned to the White House — escalating that rhetoric."
Watch the clip below or at this link.