Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are pointing the finger at heated political rhetoric that contributed to the violence following the suspected assassination attempt on former President Trump on Sunday.
This is the second time in just a few months that such a heated debate has broken out, and politicians are becoming more and more personal.
Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who was seriously injured by a left-wing gunman during a congressional baseball practice in 2017, was particularly passionate and forceful in a weekly press conference when he accused Democrats of complicity in the attacks.
“We can now point to a very specific rhetoric that we know is provoking some of these people who are crazy, who are getting it wrong and wanting to implement what the Democrats are signaling to them with their statements on this,” Scalise said.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) meanwhile said that “everyone needs to tone down their rhetoric,” but referred specifically to Democrats.
“When members of Congress or the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate say that President Trump must be removed or that he is a threat to democracy or when they compare him to Hitler, people are unstable and that makes them do crazy things,” Johnson said.
Democrats have rejected such allegations, arguing that their attacks on Trump focus on specific policies and the threat they believe he poses to America’s democratic traditions. These criticisms, they say, are entirely valid – especially in an election year – and they have no intention of abandoning their warning to voters.
“House Democrats are completely united in their belief that there is no place for political violence. We will not encourage it, we will not support it, we will stand up against it at all times,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), leader of the House Democratic Caucus, told reporters at the Capitol. “But we will also stand up against the lies that are being spread on the campaign trail.”
The Democrats also quickly notice Trump’s own history of violent rhetoricincluding his defense of white supremacists, his threats of direct physical violence against protesters at his rallies, and his attacks on journalists who label him an enemy of the state.
Democrats have also long accused Trump of inciting the violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the building in a failed attempt to overturn his election defeat months earlier.
“Listen to what he says. Listen to what they say,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).
“They’re desperate. They’re looking for ways to distract from the fact that Trump is losing support every day,” he continued. “If they want to go down that road, then you could blame Trump – or you could blame Republicans – for a lot of the bad things that have happened in this country based on what they’ve said.”
The Suspect arrested In connection with the incident outside Trump’s Florida golf course on Sunday, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, had a checkered past, including a felony conviction in North Carolina following an armed standoff with police in 2002. Routh also claimed to have voted for Trump in 2016, but more recently he had shifted his energies to defending Ukraine after Russia invaded in 2022. In a self-published book last year, Routh called for Trump’s assassination because the former president pulled out of a previous nuclear deal with Iran. According to reports.
The incident occurred about two months after Trump survived an assassination attempt during an outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in which a lone gunman fired eight shots from a nearby rooftop.
According to the Democrats, the two incidents can be linked in a plain way: both attackers suffered from grave mental health problems.
“People have to watch their words. But these people who attacked Trump both times were crazy. And [Republicans] know that,” McGovern said.
Republicans, on the other hand, claim that Democrats’ verbal attacks on Trump are forcing these would-be assassins to act.
Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida expressed these concerns when she unveiled on Wednesday that her office had been the subject of a “very serious shooting threat.”
“The left continues to pursue a radical agenda of hate and rhetoric that leads to violence. Just hours before this threat to my office, we witnessed a second assassination attempt on President Trump,” Luna said in a statement. “We will NOT be threatened or intimidated by those who use violence to push their narrative and try to win an election.”
At Wednesday’s press conference, Scalise read specific quotes from Democrats that he said could cause a “crazy” person to get worked up.
Scalise pointed out that Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said last year that Trump was “destructive to our democracy and that he must be removed.”
Goldman apologized for the remark a day after making that statement, he said that while Trump “must be defeated, I certainly do not wish him any harm and I do not condone political violence.” And on Wednesday, Goldman pointed the finger back at Trump at the Capitol.
“I think Republicans are grasping at every straw to blame Democrats for the rise in political violence, ignoring what happened on January 6, the rhetoric that Trump uses more than anyone else,” Goldman said.
Goldman pointed out that Trump had said “fight” immediately after the first assassination attempt in July: “What does he think ‘fight, fight, fight’ means?”
Scalise also referenced a remark made by Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Va.I.) last year in which she said Trump “needs to be shot” – but he failed to mention that Plaskett appeared to have a verbal lapse, as she immediately responded “stop” after saying “shot.”
Plaskett then conservative media for “citing a case where I slipped up and misrepresented it as if I was advocating violence – which I clearly do not.” In the statement, Plaskett added that she “wishes no ill will or harm to Trump, only that justice be done in his case.”
Plaskett defended her remarks on Wednesday, noting that she “said one word, then corrected herself on the next word, and then went on to talk about how Donald Trump’s rhetoric needs to stop.”
“It’s terrible that there have been assassination attempts on this president, just as there have been assassination attempts on other presidents. And these are deranged individuals who must be stopped,” Plaskett said. “But are we in a position in our country where our democracy and its continued existence are at stake, should things like Project 2025 come into play if Donald Trump is indeed elected as the next president? Yes, and we will continue to say that.”
“Donald Trump’s presidency – his presidency – is a threat to our democracy,” she stressed.
Scalise’s main target was Vice President Kamala Harris and her recurrent warnings – common among Democrats – that “Trump is a threat to our democracy and fundamental freedoms.”
“The second shooter, the attempted shooter, repeated the same language as Kamala,” Scalise said.
“So this is no longer a dog whistle like the left used to do. When Democrats say this, it is now taken by some crazy people as a call to action,” Scalise said. “Kamala has to stop saying that President Trump is a threat to democracy. There are crazy people who take this as a call to eliminate President Trump. She has to stop doing that now.”
The White House and Harris’ campaign team did not initially comment on Scalise’s comments. After Saturday’s incident, Harris said in a statement that she was “deeply disturbed” and condemned political violence.
Democrats do not believe that common statements about Trump are inflammatory.
“If someone were to say that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy and someone should use violence against him, that would be completely inappropriate. But to say that someone who identifies a threat to democracy is inciting violence is absurd,” Goldman said.
