A prominent New York Times political reporter told CNN on Tuesday night that the Trump campaign would want to coordinate its messaging with Sen. J.D. Vance, saying she thinks the campaign is "perfectly happy" to keep Vance in an "attack dog" role.
Vance (R-OH) has recently called for “the left” to tone down its political rhetoric following a second plot to assassinate Trump, and said there needs to be a “reduction in the ridiculous and inflammatory political rhetoric.”
“We cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist, and if he’s elected, it is gonna be the end of American democracy,” he said.
Maggie Haberman joined Anderson Cooper to discuss what appear to be conflicting messages in the Trump orbit. Cooper played a supercut of Trump repeatedly calling Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats "fascists" and tried to make sense of Vance's comment calling for the left to avoid such rhetoric.
"The 'fascist' thing — that just seems such an obvious thing that Trump says. You would think, I mean, he knows that. You would think he would coordinate at least his statements with the Trump campaign a little bit."
But Haberman said the Trump campaign is probably A-okay with Vance's statement.
"I don't think the Trump campaign is unhappy at all with what J.D. Vance is saying," said Haberman. "I think that we have seen for a long time that when Trump is called something, he tends to say it back to whoever has said it to him. And I think the Trump campaign is perfectly happy with the role that J.D. Vance is playing as an attack dog."
If the campaign was unhappy, she said, Vance would not continue doing so. The campaign takes no issue with Vance''s promotion of a racist and baseless conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants are abducting and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
"That gets to a topic of immigration, which is what they want to be talking about," Haberman said.
And when it comes to the assassination attempt and incendiary rhetoric, she expects neither side will stop attacking the other.
"It has become useful for the Trump campaign to say it," she said.
While Trump is trying to "project strength" and as "somebody who can live through anything" following the second plot on his life, his campaign appears to be less confident.
"I don't think his campaign feels especially solid right now, security-wise," said Haberman, later adding that Trump met with the acting head of the Secret Service on Monday.
At that meeting, she said, Trump questioned whether he can continue to golf. The Secret Service head said it would require additional resources to keep him safe.
Former President Donald Trump and his supporters are coalescing around a narrative that Vice President Kamala Harris and her supporters are at fault for two assassination plots against him, by criticizing his character and saying he's dangerous for democracy. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) even demanded that Harris take down all references to Project 2025 from ads in swing states for Trump's safety.
This is complete nonsense, Lincoln Project co-founder and former Republican strategist Rick Wilson wrote on his Substack — and Democrats should ignore the demands.
"The emerging MAGA conflation that every criticism of Donald Trump is a call for his assassination is a logical, moral, and political fallacy of the most sublimely stupid nature, a false equivalence so profoundly wrong in every dimension that only the people with a political death wish (and, perhaps, the American media) could buy it," wrote Wilson. "They say calling Trump what he is — a pedant authoritarian, a convicted criminal, an enabler of the worst and most dangerous elements of our body politic — constitutes a death threat, not a description. Sorry, MAGA, but if the jackboot fits, wear it: he is an authoritarian, a statist, a racist, an aspiring fascist, a hateful, mendacious, corrupt traitor, a fool, mentally ill, and frankly evil."
The fact is, Wilson wrote, Harris has not at any point called for violence against Trump. The former president, on the other hand, frequently does precisely that with people he disagrees.
Trump has regularly called for using state and supporter power against critics, Wilson said, "from his yokelspringa rallies to the Oval Office." That includes Trump's call to shoot peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square Park and his comments about "Second Amendment people" taking out Hillary Clinton.
"You claim that talking about Trump, Project 2025, his debate loss, his grotesque, sweaty relationship with 9/11 truther and madwoman Laura Loomer, his dementia, infirmity, and word-salad glossolalia are like shouting 'fire' in the proverbial crowded theater," wrote Wilson. He then proceeded to enumerate other GOP demands about how to handle Trump — and rejected them one by one.
"You demand our silence. I refuse," he wrote, repeatedly.
Meanwhile, said Wilson, "You threaten us, dox us, SWAT us, call us criminals, communists, pedophiles, and murderers, and demand we meekly accept your lies and slanders. You threaten our families and loved ones and demand we accept your terms. And at that, and once more with feeling, I absolutely refuse."
An MSNBC host shredded comments from Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) that Democrats' incendiary rhetoric is to blame for recent political violence by pointing out that Donald Trump's running mate is only on the 2024 ticket because a violent mob attacked Trump's first running mate.
Nicolle Wallace started off her Tuesday show by highlighting Vance's claim. His evidence: there have been no known attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris or President Joe Biden in the past two months.
But Wallace cited a well-known example of political violence that came after a Trump attack on social media.
"It is truly remarkable to hear comments like that from a man who's only on the Republican ticket because the last person to serve as vice president to Donald Trump wouldn't," noted Wallace. "He was threatened by a violent mob to be hung. 'Hang Mike Pence,' because he refused to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power in America."
Vance "eagerly dispenses — without any shred of evidence — blame and assigns motives without anyone in law enforcement saying that that's the case, for a universally condemned incident," she said.
Meanwhile, Wallace added that "Democrats on the receiving end of J.D. Vance's attacks are today telling the truth."
She played a clip of Harris speaking to the National Association of Black Journalists condemning political violence.
At one point, Wallace also showed a video that took Vance's statement apart and paired his accusations of Harris with the things Trump said about her. So, when he attacked "the left" for fearing fascism, Trump called Harris a "Marxist, communist fascist."
Former FBI agent Pete Strzok later listed examples of people who Trump has attacked publicly and walked through the violence that followed those comments.
Vice President Kamala Harris held an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists on Tuesday in Philadelphia in which she skewered former President Donald Trump's attacks on Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio.
In the wake of Trump's attacks, in which he made false claims about immigrants kidnapping and eating local residents' pets, the city has had to shut down schools multiple times due to bomb threats made against the facilities.
"It's a crying shame," said Harris. "I mean, my heart breaks for this community. There were elementary school children who — it was, it was school photo day. You remember what that's like? Going to school on picture day? Dressed up in their best. Got all ready. Knew what they were going to wear the night before."
"Children. Children," Harris repeated. "A whole community put in fear. And I'll say a couple of things about it. One, you know, I learned a long time ago in my career having a background as a prosecutor. When you have these positions, when you have that kind of microphone in front of you, you really ought to understand at a very deep level how much your words have meaning."
She said that as a prosecutor, she realized her words could determine a defendant's guilt or innocence, and she has always been conscious of this fact. She called a "profound responsibility" and an understanding of the "public trust."
"It means that you have been invested in trust to be reasonable in ways you use your words, much less how you conduct yourself. And especially when you have been and then seek to be again president of the United States of America. It's a crying shame, Literally," she said without mentioning Trump by name.
She then turned to the practical impact on the community of Springfield, noting how the threats have been stretching law enforcement resources, and putting everyone at risk beyond the Haitians who are meant as the target.
She then tied Trump's attacks on the Haitian immigrant community to past instances of racism from the former president.
"This is not new in terms of where it's coming from," she also pointed out. "Whether it is refusing to rent to people, rent to Black families, whether it is taking out a full page ad in The New York Times against five innocent Black and Latino teenagers, Central Park Five calling for their execution, whether it is referring to the first Black president of the United States with a lie. Birther lies?"
Former President Donald Trump has come up with a novel way to improve voters' lives by vowing to repeal part of his signature legislative achievement.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, the former president announced he was having a campaign rally at Long Island's Nassau Coliseum and then proceeded to paint a dystopian view of the United States as a nation with "Crime at record levels, Terrorists pouring in, Inflation eating your hearts out."
"SALT" refers to a federal deduction for state and local taxes that was repealed as part of House Republicans' 2017 tax cut bill.
The removal of the state and local taxes deduction received criticism at the time as a punishment for residents of blue states who typically have higher taxes than residents of red states.
Many swing-district Democrats in states such as New York and New Jersey won elections in 2018 while pledging to bring back the SALT deduction that Trump and his Republican congressional allies repealed.
Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance told supporters Tuesday that Vice President Kamala Harris was putting the country on a "path to slavery."
During a rally in Sparta, Michigan, Vance claimed Harris was "trying to make us buy more and more Chinese-made electric vehicles."
The candidate argued that his presidential running mate, Donald Trump, wanted Americans to "buy more cars in Michigan, not in some foreign country."
"Kamala Harris wants to ship everybody's job off to China and then turn them into welfare dependents," he insisted. "That is not a path to prosperity, that is a path to slavery, and it's what Kamala Harris has been doing for three and a half years."
According to Reuters, fact checks determined that Harris was "a descendant of both slaves and slave owners."
The Atlantic noted that "the overwhelming majority of African Americans have white male ancestors, largely because of white male slave owners who raped Black female slaves."
News that podcaster Joe Rogan recently heaped praise on Vice President Kamala Harris and publicly mocked former President Donald Trump shocked political pundits who say it foretells problems for the Republican presidential nominee.
Rogan Monday dropped the latest episode of his eponymous interview show in which he talks at length about Harris' and Trump's campaigning prowess.
"Amazing job," Rogan said of Harris. "She's nailing it."
Rogan specifically praised Harris for baiting Trump into talking about his crowd sizes at the presidential debate on ABC News last Tuesday.
"Oh my God, this is Jiu-jitsu, where she's like 'If you go to his rallies, his crowds are boring," Rogan said. He then transitioned into an imitation of Trump.
"My crowds are the best crowds — I have the number one crowds," Rogan's mock-Trump said. Then Rogan added, "He couldn't help himself!"
Former NBC Universal executive Mike Sington shared on X the clip from "The Joe Rogan Experience" and started a social media uproar.
Tim Fullerton, Democratic strategist for former President Barack Obama, said the podcast's praise for Harris spelled bad news for Trump.
"This is a huge problem for Donald Trump," Fullerton wrote. "If Joe Rogan turns on him and starts praising Kamala Harris like he is here - Trump is toast."
Victor Shi, a youth organizer for Harris' presidential campaign, argued the comment would give his candidate's campaign a boost by reaching a key voting bloc.
"This is really good & big," Shi wrote. "Joe Rogan, who reaches a lot of young Republican men, just said Kamala Harris is 'nailing it.'"
The Lincoln Project, the outspoken political group of never-Trump Republicans, mocked the former president with a reference to his recent Truth Social post condemning Taylor Swift, the singer-songwriter who has thrown her support behind Harris.
"I HATE JOE ROGAN Trump tweet incoming any minute," they wrote.
“She’s nailing it.” Joe Rogan raves about Kamala Harris’ campaign and debate performance, and he mocks Donald Trump. (Video: The Joe Rogan Experience) pic.twitter.com/tnAWPnZlFM — Mike Sington (@MikeSington) September 17, 2024
A supporter of former President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that children were "terrified" because schools were putting "litter boxes in the bathrooms."
Ahead of a rally in Flint, Michigan, RSBN host Titus Smith spoke to a woman who said she supported Trump to be "the voice for our children."
"You can't even protect them at school," the woman asserted. "These kids are terrified."
"They have more put into litter boxes in the bathrooms and everything else, instead of teaching our kids," she continued. "It's scary what's happening."
The Trump supporter revealed that her children did not want to vote "because they're so afraid of what people are going to think of them."
"They are afraid of politics, completely afraid, because they don't want to upset anybody," she said. "They want to vilify you and make you feel if you say something, what you believe to be true, what you know to be true, that you are the problem."
In 2022, at least 20 Republican politicians falsely claimed that schools were accommodating students who identify as cats by installing litter boxes.
"What's most provocative about this hoax is how it turns on two key wedge issues for conservatives: educational accommodations and gender nonconformity," Harvard University research director Joan Donovan told NBC News.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) blamed former President Donald Trump for undermining families' access to in vitro fertilization (IVF).
At a press conference on Tuesday, Duckworth promoted a bill that would establish a nationwide right to IVF and lower costs for the procedure.
Duckworth noted that she used IVF treatments to start a family after being injured in combat.
"It's a miracle, because after ten years of struggling with infertility, after being wounded in combat, I was only able to have my girls through the miracle of IVF," she explained. "But now, thanks to Donald Trump, that right to get reproductive care is at risk for millions of women across this great nation."
"Look, I doubt that Donald Trump even knows what the acronym IVF stands for," she continued. "Heck, I'm not even sure half the time that he can spell IVF."
"But, you know, despite the incoherent, delusional, and frankly embarrassing ramblings that came out of his mouth last week, he is the reason that IVF is at risk in the first place."
Duckworth discounted Trump's recent claim that he would require insurance companies to cover IVF treatments if reelected.
"What women don't need is a man who is found liable for sexual abuse controlling what we can or cannot do with our bodies," she said. "What we don't need are politicians who have sworn fealty to a convicted felon treating us like we are the criminals."
"All I'm asking of them is to simply support this bill that could represent millions of women's only chance of starting a family," the lawmaker added.
The bomb threats disrupting life in the Ohio city of Springfield, where former President Donald Trump and his running mate have repeatedly and falsely claimed immigrants eat pets, has spurred a demand for an apology from an unlikely source: Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH).
"I'm still waiting on a correction and apology from the left wing journalists," Vance wrote. "They lied about these bomb threats to silence us."
Vance did not explain how he believes the media lied, but echoed a claim he made to Dana Bash on CNN Sunday, when he argued he was justified in creating stories if it focused journalists' attention on Biden Administration's policies.
"They don't want to talk about Kamala Harris's border policies making housing unaffordable for American citizens," Vance wrote.
Vance shared messages from his communications director William Martin and MSNBC political analyst Kyle Cheney — both of whom offered different takes on Vance's ties to the mounting bomb threats in Springfield.
"Springfield, OH officials are canceling an annual celebration of diversity, arts, and culture due to safety concerns, after numerous threats were received by city, county, and school facilities," Cheney wrote. "Those threats came after Trump and Vance targeted Springfield with racist lies."
"Fake News MSDNC hack claims that bomb threats happened because of Trump and Vance," Martin wrote. "OH Gov Mike DeWine said every bomb threat in Springfield has been a hoax and many came from overseas."
Martin is correct that DeWine called the threats hoaxes and sourced them to one foreign nation he did not name, but it's worth noting DeWine has also condemned the commentary about Haitian immigrants.
"This is a piece of garbage that was simply not true," DeWine said. "Discussions about Haitians eating cats and dogs needs to stop."
Meanwhile, Springfield residents told a Raw Story reporter last week they too would like an apology — from Vance.
“I think it's very, very disgusting to have a running president and vice to even single out Springfield without them educating themselves," Denise Williams, president of Springfield's NAACP branch told Raw Story.
"I want J.D. Vance to apologize to our community because it was a disgusting remark, and it has fueled the fire that's already blazing here...I hope the word gets back to him that we really need him to apologize to the city.”
Ohio Republican U.S. Senator J.D. Vance published a 1203-word diatribe Monday night filled with falsehoods and feeble hypocrisies, demanding that Democrats "tone down the rhetoric" while insisting he opposes "censorship." Critics are accusing the GOP vice presidential nominee of hypocrisy and gaslighting the public, given his and his running mate's lies about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pets, and Donald Trump's vicious attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris, which mirror what Vance is urging Democrats to not do.
"Reject censorship and you reject political violence. Embrace censorship, and you will inevitably embrace violence on its behalf," Vance alleged in his post on X, before reaching this dramatic conclusion: "The logic of censorship leads directly to one place, for there is only one way to permanently silence a human being: put a bullet in his brain."
That's how Vance's screed ended. But it began with a falsehood: "Yesterday, Donald J. Trump nearly lost his life."
He was referring to the alleged attempted assassination on Sunday, during which a 58-year old man who voted for Trump in 2016 before publicly expressing his regret and supporting Republican Nikki Haley this year, was found by a Secret Service agent outside the perimeter of Trump's Mar-a-Lago golf course, 300 to 500 feet away from the ex-president, with an AK-47. The agent shot at the suspect, who had been waiting in the bushes for about 12 hours.
"Ryan Wesley Routh did not fire any shots, never had Trump in his line of sight and sped away after an agent who spotted him shot in his direction, officials said. He was arrested in a neighboring county," NBC South Florida reported.
And while this second alleged assassination attempt, once again by a GOP voter, is disturbing, Trump did not nearly lose his life anymore than he "took a bullet for democracy," as he claimed after the first assassination attempt.
And yet Vance wrote, "The rhetoric is out of control. It nearly got Steve Scalise and many others killed a few years ago. It nearly got Donald Trump killed twice" – a clear attack on Democrats despite both alleged attempted shooters targeting Trump were his own supporters, at least at one time. As for the Scalise shooting in 2017, seven years ago, the perpetrator had a 20-year history of run-ins with the police, including an arrest "after a 2006 incident in which he was accused of beating his foster daughter, according to court records. The case crumbled after the victim decided not to testify," Bloomberg reported. Had he been convicted he would have been unable to own a gun.
Vance also claimed that "Kamala Harris has said that 'Democracy is on the line' in her race against President Trump. The gunman agreed, and used the exact same phrase."
NCRM could find no news reports making the claim Routh has said that, but you know who has? The American people.
"Americans agree that the future of democracy is on the line in the 2024 election but disagree about who poses the biggest threat," is the headline of a December PBS News report.
"A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 62% of adults say democracy in the U.S. could be at risk depending on who wins next fall. Majorities of Democrats (72%) and Republicans (55%) feel the same way, but for different reasons."
Vance also promoted the claim – again, nowhere to be found in news reports NCRM could find – that, he says, "suggest [the bomb threats] came from a foreign country, not--as the media suggested--a deranged Trump fan."
It is the same suggestion made, apparently without public proof or substance, by Ohio's Republican Governor Mike DeWine and Attorney General Dave Yost, also citing no source.
As for the bomb threats, Governor DeWine announced Monday there had been 33 since Donald Trump and JD Vance made their wild accusations that Haitian immigrants (20,000 "illegal" migrants they falsely claimed) are stealing and eating the cats and dogs of Springfield residents. 33 affecting 22 facilities including elementary schools and hospitals that were forced to be evacuated, shuttered, or searched.
Somehow, Vance and the GOP are claiming that the bomb threats coming from overseas (not proven) absolve them of any guilt. It does not. The bomb threats are a direct result of Vance's and Trump's lies attacking immigrants, which in turn are a hallmark of Donald Trump's political career since he came down the golden Trump Tower escalator in 2015 and told the American people their problems are being caused by Mexicans.
"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best. They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems," Trump said on the June day when he launched his first presidential run. "They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people."
And while Vance is demanding Democrats "tone down the rhetoric," he ignores the words of his running mate, Donald Trump, who just last week repeatedly called Vice President Harris "a threat to democracy," in a speech before the Fraternal Order of Police.
Meanwhile, civil rights and national security journalist Marcy Wheeler blasted Vance's massive social media post, calling it a "a fascist manifesto," in which, she writes, the Ohio Senator argues "that false claims dehumanizing migrants is opinion the censorship of which will lead to violence, but Harris' factual observations about Trump's coup attempt is violence."
Posting a screenshot, Wheeler sardonically remarked that his post "starts by feigning to care about incendiary speech, but ultimately says you have to let his Nazi buddies lie about Haitians eating kitties."
Because it was a lie, a lie that Vance admitted to when he told CNN on Sunday he will "create stories" to promote his agenda: "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
National security attorney Brad Moss debunked Vance's public remarks Monday in which the Senator claimed, "You know the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months. I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric, and needs to cut this crap out."
Former Lincoln Project executive director Fred Wellman summed up Vance's remarks, asking, "So if I understand the new MAGA messaging correctly; quoting Trump and Vance’s actual words they have said on the record multiple times is inciting violence?"
The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson also slammed Vance, writing: "All your gifts, wasted on a dissolute con man, a rapist, serial adulterer, a bankrupt wastrel, and an eager authoritarian who has stoked more violence, hatred, division, death, and chaos than any President in modern history. You, sir, are the cause of death and bomb threats happening *this instant* in Ohio and you elide your guilt with the grace of a Harvard law grad. Spare me."
"This reads like your daddy Trump yelled at you & told you to make it right. You had an all-time debacle of an interview yesterday where all you had to say was 'I’m sorry to my home state. As an elected official it is my responsibility to fact check the things I say.' & today more bomb threats came into the schools that your constituents send their kids to. You talk about Democratic 'rhetoric' like your daddy didn’t lead an attack on a the Capitol. Well, since you said we are allowed to say mean things, let me say this, you are a disgrace."
Mother Jones national affairs editor Mark Folman added, "What brazen gaslighting from JD Vance, who literally led the way on incitement blaming Dems for the shooting in Pennsylvania — 'They even tried to kill him' This BS rhetoric [was] repeated by Vance and many top Trump surrogates."
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Scarborough Tuesday morning called Vance's speech in which he called for Democrats to tone down the rhetoric, "gaslighting of the first order."
New disturbing details have emerged about threats targeting a Springfield university after former President Donald Trump spread baseless claims about local immigrant eating pets, CNN reported Tuesday.
Wittenberg University president Dr. Michael Frandsen appeared on the cable news network Tuesday morning to discuss the violent threats that forced him to transition students to remote learning — and to share a fact that shocked anchor Wolf Blitzer.
"It's chilling to hear that students are being named in some of these threats," Blitzer said. "That's very chilling."
Wittenberg University has received multiple threats from what appears to be a single source now being investigated by Springfield police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Frandsen told Blitzer.
The threats, not deemed credible, warn of physical violence, bombings and shootings, he said.
Frandsen said students are stunned by what is occurring in the Ohio town, which has seen 33 bomb threats, trooper patrols at 17 local schools, two elementary school evacuations and virtual learning implemented at two colleges, CNN reported.
"There's shock and disbelief given what are experience here in Springfield is every day," Fransden said. "We've seen tremendous growth in our population, primarily a Haitian immigrants coming here legally to work, and the interactions with those folks around town are positive."
The uptick in violent threats occurred after Trump and running mate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) spread baseless claims that Haitians had been stealing and eating residents' dogs and cats.
Trump did so at his first presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris last Tuesday.
Vance on Sunday told CNN's Dana Bash that he felt justified in creating stories if it focused media attention on problems caused by the Biden Administration's immigration policies.
But Frandsen condemned Trump's and Vance's remarks as falsehoods and said what his town needs is "help, not hate."
A one-time official in former President Donald Trump's administration was shut down on live television Tuesday morning by a CNN host fed-up with political "gaslighting."
Former senior White House advisor Matt Mowers faced off against anchor Kate Bolduan and Obama administration speech writer Terry Szuplat in a heated discussion about unacceptable rhetoric — and who was guilty of it.
"You still have Vice President [Kamala] Harris's campaign saying that [Project 2025] is a danger and threat to democracy and Donald Trump's subscribes to every word in it," Mowers argued. "It's the type of lies and gaslighting that does drive people's to start saying, 'Maybe I have to take my own hands' and that is the problem we have—"
"But Matt," Bolduan interrupted Mowers to speak over him, "Talking about gaslighting is exactly what I feel has been happening on our air."
Moments earlier, Bolduan had interviewed Trump campaign surrogate Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) and grilled him on his belief that Trump's false claims that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio did not constitute dangerous rhetoric.
"Donald Trump does not have a rhetoric problem," Donalds asserted.
"Even Republicans who support him and are voting for him this election have basically begged him to tone it down," Bolduan replied.
When Bolduan replayed a clip from the Donalds interview and asked Mowers the same question, she received a similar answer.
"I'm not saying both parties shouldn't calm down," Mowers said. "But if you look at from the perspective of what Byron Donalds, what J.D. Vance are saying... the only candidate who has now successfully survived two assassination attempts is Donald Trump."
Trump indeed appears to have been targeted by two gunmen over the past two months — the first Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who was shot dead after an attempt on July 13, and suspect Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old arrested on federal gun charges after shots rang out on the former president's Palm Beach golf club on Sunday.
"Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again," Harris said in response to a ProPublica investigative report. "Now women are dying. These are the consequences of Donald Trump's actions."
This is the statement Mowers equated with Trump's recent commentary on Harris after the apparent assassination attack.
"Under Comrade Kamala Harris, the Border will be WIDE OPEN and there will always be more people coming in, many of them terrorists and criminals, than jobs available," Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday. "KAMALA IS KILLING BLACK AND HISPANIC HERITAGE, SHE IS KILLING THEIR LEGACY AND THEIR RIGHTS."
Prompted by Bolduan, Szuplat joined the conversation to criticize Mowers, Vance, Donalds and Trump for, as he saw it, casting blame without considering the consequences of their own words.
"This is exactly what we just heard, it's exactly what I'm getting out," Szuplat said. "If all anyone does is get up and blame other people for this situation that we're never going to get out of this."
Szuplat didn't weigh in on political lines — but his advice on how to tone down political rhetoric targeted multiple tactics commonly deployed by Trump.
"We can stop...describing fellow human beings as animals," Szuplat said. "We can stop referring to fellow Americans who disagree with us as the enemy...who need to be crushed, who need to be destroyed."
