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But to many of Trump’s supporters, Biden and his allies were the reason for that disunity — and for the threat on the former president’s life. They demanded that Democrats retract their heated criticism of the former president, and that they tread more lightly now.
“Today is not just some isolated incident,” Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance wrote on X. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
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The shooting, which injured Trump and left one rally-goer dead, stirred Republican anger at how Democrats and the left sometimes talked about their party. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who survived a 2017 mass shooting by a man who’d posted angry threats against Republicans, had previously invoked that to rebuke Republicans who blamed Trump for right-wing violence.
On Saturday night, he linked the Butler shooting to the Democrats’ campaign themes.
“For weeks Democrat leaders have been fueling ludicrous hysteria that Donald Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America,” the Louisiana congressman wrote. “Clearly we’ve seen far left lunatics act on violent rhetoric in the past. This incendiary rhetoric must stop.”
Other Republicans said that the shooting should convince Democrats to wind down prosecutions of the GOP nominee. Several criticized Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, who had chaired the Jan. 6 Select Committee, for introducing a bill that would end Secret Service protection if recipients were convicted of felonies.
The legislation was doomed in the Republican-led House; Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote that the co-sponsors “wanted this to happen.” And other Republicans said that Democrats should altogether end the cases against Trump.
“We’ve got to take the political temperature down,” Utah Sen. Mike Lee said in a statement, urging Biden to “immediately order that all federal criminal charges against President Trump be dropped, and to ask the governors of New York and Georgia to do the same.”
That, explained Lee, could “help heal wounds and allow all Americans to take a deep breath and reflect on how we got here.”
Thompson, the Democratic congressman, defended his bill in a statement through a spokesperson, saying it “would not have affected the Secret Service’s presence during this tragic event” and merely “aims to clarify lines of authority when a protectee is sentenced to prison and is in the custody of another law enforcement agency. That does not apply to the former President.”
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Republicans blame Democrats for attack on Trump
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As law enforcement investigated an apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump, President Joe Biden called the violence “sick,” and “one of the reasons why we have to unite this country.”But to many of Trump’s supporters, Biden and his allies were the reason for that disunity — and for the threat on the former president’s life. They demanded that Democrats retract their heated criticism of the former president, and that they tread more lightly now.
“Today is not just some isolated incident,” Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance wrote on X. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
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The shooting, which injured Trump and left one rally-goer dead, stirred Republican anger at how Democrats and the left sometimes talked about their party. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who survived a 2017 mass shooting by a man who’d posted angry threats against Republicans, had previously invoked that to rebuke Republicans who blamed Trump for right-wing violence.
On Saturday night, he linked the Butler shooting to the Democrats’ campaign themes.
“For weeks Democrat leaders have been fueling ludicrous hysteria that Donald Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America,” the Louisiana congressman wrote. “Clearly we’ve seen far left lunatics act on violent rhetoric in the past. This incendiary rhetoric must stop.”
Other Republicans said that the shooting should convince Democrats to wind down prosecutions of the GOP nominee. Several criticized Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, who had chaired the Jan. 6 Select Committee, for introducing a bill that would end Secret Service protection if recipients were convicted of felonies.
The legislation was doomed in the Republican-led House; Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote that the co-sponsors “wanted this to happen.” And other Republicans said that Democrats should altogether end the cases against Trump.
“We’ve got to take the political temperature down,” Utah Sen. Mike Lee said in a statement, urging Biden to “immediately order that all federal criminal charges against President Trump be dropped, and to ask the governors of New York and Georgia to do the same.”
That, explained Lee, could “help heal wounds and allow all Americans to take a deep breath and reflect on how we got here.”
Thompson, the Democratic congressman, defended his bill in a statement through a spokesperson, saying it “would not have affected the Secret Service’s presence during this tragic event” and merely “aims to clarify lines of authority when a protectee is sentenced to prison and is in the custody of another law enforcement agency. That does not apply to the former President.”
