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Dem Senate hopefuls under scrutiny for ‘choke them out’ rhetoric after Trump attack scare

April 27, 2026 4:24pm EDT / Fox News

Graham Platner, Abdul El-Sayed and Roy Cooper face scrutiny from the NRSC over past comments

By Alex Miller, Fox News

Following the third attempt on President Donald Trump’s life, White House officials are calling for accountability from the media and the Democratic Party, pointing to a ‘crazed’ normalization of rhetoric that radicalizes unstable people and fuels online disinformation. Karoline Leavitt criticized Jimmy Kimmel’s ‘widow’ joke and ‘despicable’ comments from top Democrats as catalysts that inspire mentally disturbed individuals to commit violence.

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A handful of Democratic hopefuls are under scrutiny for comments made before the apparent third assassination attempt against President Donald Trump that appeared to support violence against Republicans.

Political rhetoric, particularly the kind that skews toward violent or aggressive imagery from Democrats, and its role in political violence have time and again come under the microscope during Trump’s second term in office.

After the apparent third assassination attempt against Trump over the weekend, in which alleged shooter Cole Allen was subdued by federal law enforcement during the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, D.C., the Senate’s campaign arm is putting a spotlight on aggressive comments three hopefuls, Graham Platner, Abdul El-Sayed and former Gov. Roy Cooper, made in the past.

REPUBLICANS RUSH TO GREEN LIGHT WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM FOLLOWING THIRD TRUMP ASSASSINATION SCARE

Senate Democratic hopefuls Graham Platner, Abdul El-Sayed and former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper are under scrutiny for their past violent rhetoric against Republicans in light of a possible third assassination attempt against President Donald Trump.(Sophie Park/Getty Images; Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images; AP Photo/Nell Redmond)

National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) spokesperson Bernadette Breslin slammed Democratic candidates running for the Senate for not lowering the temperature, something they once called for, and for not condemning the shooting over the weekend.

“Today’s Democrats are beholden to a Trump-hating base that is dragging their party down a dangerous path,” Breslin told Fox News Digital. “Republicans have consistently made clear that political violence has no place in America, while Democrats’ silence is deafening.”

Calls to tone down the rhetoric reached a zenith after the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk last year. But that moment has done little to quiet the back-and-forth, particularly on the campaign trail.

HOUSE GOP PUSHES BACK ON SENATE’S ‘SKINNY’ PLAN TO END RECORD-BREAKING DHS SHUTDOWN

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt addresses the upcoming White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner during a briefing on April 27, 2026.(Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Platner, who is running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in a race that could determine control of the Senate, did little to tone down his speech on the heels of Kirk’s assassination.

“I don’t wanna beat Susan Collins, I want to trounce Susan Collins,” Platner said at the time during an interview with Meidas Touch. “I want to give the Republican Party a battering.”

Platner’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his past rhetoric or on whether he condemned the shooting.

Just a few weeks later, fellow progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is locked in a contentious three-way Democratic primary vying for the seat held by outgoing Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., went after Republicans with heated rhetoric.

EXPERT WARNS DEMOCRATS RISK BACKLASH OVER FAILURE TO CONDEMN VIOLENT RHETORIC IN THEIR RANKS

President Donald Trump revealed Sunday during an interview on “60 Minutes” that a Democrat asked to hug him in the aftermath of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shooting.(Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

He put a new spin on a phrase coined years ago by former first lady Michelle Obama during a Fight Oligarchy tour stop run by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in Michigan.

“When they go low, we don’t go high,” El-Sayed said. “We take them to the mud and choke them out.”

El-Sayed did condemn the shooting in Washington, D.C., and said in a post on X that he was “relieved that no members of the administration, media, staff, or bystanders were hurt,” but his campaign did not comment on his past rhetoric against Republicans.

Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who is running to flip retiring Sen. Thom Tillis’, R-N.C., seat in the upper chamber, blasted Trump as a “threat to democracy” and argued that “defeating him is imperative” during the 2024 presidential cycle.

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A spokesperson for his Senate bid told Fox News Digital that Cooper believed “that political violence of any kind is unacceptable, and he’s grateful to the brave law enforcement members who worked to keep the president and attendees safe on Saturday evening.”

Meanwhile, the White House is pinning the blame for the weekend shooting on Democrats’ far-left base.

“The left-wing cult of hatred against the president and all of those who support him and work for him has gotten multiple people hurt and killed, and it almost did so again this weekend,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday.

Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.

Democratic senators launch investigation into Kuwait strike that killed U.S. troops

April 27, 2026 / 4:18 PM EDT / CBS News

Four Democratic senators say they are investigating whether the Pentagon left U.S. troops at a command post in Kuwait without sufficient protection ahead of an Iranian drone attack that killed six American servicemembers and left more than 20 wounded.

The probe comes after soldiers stationed at the base told CBS News they were left dangerously exposed at a location that was a known target for Iranian drones. Speaking publicly for the first time earlier this month, members of the targeted unit offered CBS News a detailed account of the attack, which occurred on the first day of what has extended into a monthslong conflict between the U.S. and Iran.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, four Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee questioned the Pentagon’s preparations and whether the administration “failed to protect Americans in the region from Iranian retaliation”.

At a press conference the day after the attack, Hegseth described the Iranian drone as a “squirter” that “happened to hit a tactical operations center that was fortified, but these were powerful weapons.”

Some of the survivors, members of the Army’s 103rd Sustainment Command, disputed Hegseth’s account.

“Painting a picture that ‘one squeaked through’ is a falsehood,” one of the injured soldiers told CBS News. “I want people to know the unit … was unprepared to provide any defense for itself. It was not a fortified position.”

Photo obtained by CBS News shows damage from the Iranian drone attack that killed six U.S. service members in Kuwait on March 1, 2026.

The tactical operation center was similar to structures commonplace during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — before the rise of drone warfare. Steel-reinforced concrete barriers known as T-walls surrounded the building. These types of barriers are designed to shield service members from the blast of a mortar or rocket but offer no protection from aerial attacks.

“It’s just kind of a classic, older military base,” one soldier recalled. “Some small barriers. There’s a bunch of little tin buildings where we can set up makeshift offices.”

Video of the aftermath of the drone strike shows smoke billowing from the building, fires smoldering. Surviving service members described a grisly scene, with their fellow soldiers bleeding heavily from shrapnel wounds and dealing with severe head injuries.

The senators — New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and Arizona’s Mark Kelly — are seeking information about risk assessments related to the Kuwaiti post ahead of the start of the war. One of the soldiers told CBS News they saw intelligence showing the post was on a list of potential Iranian targets.

“Secretary Hegseth sent our troops to fight in Iran, refused to take basic steps to protect them, and then tried to cover up his failures when service members died,” Warren said in a statement. “Hegseth’s leadership has been one betrayal after another — he must be held accountable.”

The Defense Department declined to comment, citing an active investigation into the incident. In a post on X addressing prior CBS News reporting on the attack, Assistant Secretary of Defense Sean Parnell said “every possible measure has been taken to safeguard our troops — at every level.”

Hegseth is set to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday, following testimony before a House panel on Wednesday.

Court document reveals new details about correspondents’ dinner shooting

April 27, 2026 / 4:25 PM EDT / CBS News

By Melissa Quinn, Jacob Rosen

Washington — Cole Allen, the man charged with attempting to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, allegedly purchased the firearms used in the attack in 2023 and 2025, and traveled by train from the West Coast to Washington, according to newly unsealed court filings.

The filings — a criminal complaint charging Allen with three offenses, and a seven-page affidavit by an FBI agent — were unsealed Monday after the suspected gunman appeared in federal court for an initial appearance.

He is charged with discharging a firearm during a violent crime, transporting a firearm in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony and attempting to assassinate the president.

According to the affidavit, Allen made a reservation on April 6 for three nights at the Washington Hilton, the site of the annual press gala, which brings together more than 2,500 members of the capital’s journalistic and political community. Prosecutors said Allen likely knew Mr. Trump would be at the event, since the president wrote on Truth Social in March that he had accepted an invitation to attend.

On April 21, Allen left Los Angeles by train and arrived in Chicago two days later, the FBI agent said. There, he boarded a train bound for Washington, D.C. He arrived on Friday at around 1 p.m. and checked in to the Hilton, the agent said.

The affidavit alleges that at approximately 8:40 p.m., Allen “approached and ran through the magnetometer holding a long gun,” and Secret Service personnel at the security checkpoint “heard a loud gunshot.” A Secret Service officer, identified as “Officer V.G.,” was shot once in the chest while wearing a ballistic vest. The affidavit does not say who fired the shot that hit the officer.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters that it appears law enforcement fired five shots. He declined to say whether it was a round from Allen’s gun that hit the Secret Service officer.

“We want to get that right, so we’re still looking at that,” he said.

The FBI agent said in the affidavit that Officer V.G. drew his weapon and fired “multiple times” at Allen, who “fell to the ground and suffered minor injuries.” Allen was not shot, according to the affidavit.

Footage from CBS News reporters who attended the correspondents’ dinner and a C-SPAN camera filming the event show that the initial shots were fired at about 8:34 p.m.

The filing states that when he was arrested, Allen had a 12-gauge pump action shotgun and a Rock Island Armory 1911 .38 caliber pistol. The FBI said that Allen purchased the pistol from a firearms dealer in California in October 2023 and the shotgun from a different dealer in August 2025.

The agent also wrote in the affidavit that shortly before 8:40 p.m. on Saturday, when Allen is said to have stormed the security checkpoint, a scheduled email, described by authorities as a “manifesto,” was sent to his family and a former employer explaining the attack.

Allen signed the email “Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen,” according to the affidavit. The FBI agent said Allen had used the name “cold force” in multiple online accounts associated with him.

The affidavit contains the contents of a file, titled “Apology and Explanation,” that the FBI said was attached to the email Allen sent to his friends and family. Authorities said they also found writings at Allen’s home in Torrance, California, and in his hotel room on the 10th floor of the Washington Hilton. The details of those messages were not included in the court document.

Mr. Trump, Vice President JD Vance and numerous Cabinet officials and lawmakers attended the event alongside scores of journalists, media executives and other public figures in celebration of the First Amendment.

In response to the attack, the president, vice president and administration officials were whisked out of the ballroom. They were not injured. The Secret Service officer hit with gunfire has been released from the hospital.

节点运行失败

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/details-on-initial-charges-against-white-house-correspondents-dinner-suspect/

4月27日在位于纽约的联合国总部，安理会举行“海事领域的水道安全与保护”公开辩论会。 （新华社）

中国常驻联合国代表傅聪说，霍尔木兹海峡受阻源于美以非法军事行动，解决出路是尽快实现全面持久停火止战。

据新华社报道，傅聪星期一（4月27日）在安理会海上安全问题高级别公开辩论会上发言。

他说，霍尔木兹海峡是重要的国际货物和能源贸易通道，维护该地区安全稳定和畅通符合国际社会共同利益。海峡受阻的根源在于美以对伊朗发动的非法军事行动。美国还在业已达成临时停火安排的情况下，加码军事部署，采取定向封锁行动，这是危险和不负责任的行为。

傅聪说，解决海峡通航受阻的出路是尽快实现全面持久停火止战，推动海湾和中东地区恢复和平稳定。中方赞赏巴基斯坦等国发挥的斡旋作用，敦促相关方通过政治外交途径化解争端，反对任何破坏停火、升级对抗的行径。中方将继续为促进地区和平稳定发挥建设性作用。

他说，国际航道的稳定畅通，同周边地区，特别是沿岸国家的和平安宁密切相关。只有坚持通过对话协商，推动热点问题降温缓和，才能为航道安全营造有利环境。滥用军事手段无法从根本上化解风险，反而会加剧紧张对立，制造更大的安全危机。

延伸阅读

古特雷斯吁开放霍尔木兹海峡：让全球经济喘口气

傅聪说，《联合国海洋法公约》以及相关国际条约和习惯国际法，共同构成现代国际海洋秩序的基础。各国要完整、准确、善意地解释和适用《公约》，杜绝选择性适用和双重标准。要善意地行使国际法赋予的航行自由权利，切实尊重沿岸国主权、安全和合法权益，保障海上正常商贸往来和航行顺畅。

傅聪表示，中国始终是国际海洋法治的坚定捍卫者和建设者。中方愿继续同国际社会一道，为维护海洋共同安全、构建海洋命运共同体作出不懈努力。

联合国秘书长古特雷斯在会上说，世界水道安全正在考验国际秩序本身，他呼吁开放霍尔木兹海峡，给全球经济喘息之机。

自2月底伊朗战事爆发以来，承载全球约五分之一石油运输的霍尔木兹海峡便处于实际瘫痪状态。尽管美伊目前暂时停火，海峡通行仍严重受限。

古特雷斯说，此刻的局势“需要克制、对话和建立信任”。

Hakeem Jeffries doubles down on ‘maximum warfare’ rhetoric, tells critics ‘I don’t give a damn’

2026-04-27T17:15:34-04:00 / Fox News

Jeffries called Karoline Leavitt a ‘disgrace’ and ‘stone cold liar’ while defending his ‘maximum warfare’ language

By Adam Pack

Published April 27, 2026 5:15pm EDT

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., doubled down on his inflammatory rhetoric toward Republicans during a fiery news conference Monday, telling critics, “I don’t give a damn.”

“I stand by it,” Jeffries told reporters, when asked about his vow last week to unleash “maximum warfare” on the GOP to counter the party’s redistricting efforts ahead of November’s midterm elections. “You can continue to criticize me for it. I don’t give a damn about your criticism.”

Jeffries’ messaging sparked backlash from Republicans following the third apparent assassination attempt on President Donald Trump’s life at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner Saturday.

Police and National Guard stand in front of the Washington Hilton after the White House Correspondents Association Dinner was postponed April 25, 2026, in Washington, DC.(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

HAKEEM JEFFRIES’ CALL TO FIGHT TRUMP AGENDA ‘IN THE STREETS’ SPARKS BACKLASH AS A ‘MAXINE WATERS MOMENT’

“That phrase ‘maximum warfare everywhere, all the time’ came from the White House in the summer of 2025, when they started this redistricting battle, and now they’re big mad,” Jeffries continued. “Why? Because Democrats have decided to finish it. Get lost.”

The top Democrat insisted that he denounced political violence in all of its forms.

Jeffries also had harsh words for White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who he labeled a “disgrace” and a “stone-cold liar” after she criticized Democrats’ rhetoric that frequently labels Trump as an existential threat.

“This so-called White House press secretary wants to lecture America and lecture us about civility. Get lost,” Jeffries said. “Clean up your own house before you have anything to say to us about the language that we use.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, speaks at a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 10, 2025.(Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg)

DEM LEADER CONDEMNS THANKSGIVING BOMB THREATS AGAINST LIBERAL LAWMAKERS AFTER TEAM TRUMP TARGETED

Leavitt hammered top Democrats’ embrace of hostile messaging toward Trump during a news conference Monday.

“This hateful, constant and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump, day after day after day for 11 years, has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment,” Leavitt said.

“When you have mentally disturbed individuals across the country who are listening to this crazed rhetoric about the president day after day after day, it inspires them to do crazy things,” she added.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) sharply criticized Jeffries’ defense of his comments.

“Democrats are playing with fire and pretending they don’t smell the smoke,” NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella said in a statement. “If they can’t bring themselves to put an end to this kind of rhetoric, it proves they’ll do anything to appease their far-left base.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attends a news conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., on April 25, 2026, after President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were evacuated from the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner following a security incident.(Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)

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Jeffries on Monday also blasted a proposed new congressional map that Florida’s Republican legislature is expected to pass in the coming days that is aimed at erasing Democrats’ gains in Virginia, where voters approved a gerrymander targeting four Republican-held seats last week.

“The so-called map, which is a DeSantis dummymander actually, is blatantly unconstitutional,” Jeffries said. “Florida is not going to make a meaningful difference as it relates to their efforts to rig the midterm elections. That effort has failed.”

中国国防动员法修订草案将初审

2026年4月28日 07:42 / 联合早报

中国国防动员法修订草案将初审。图为去年举行的九三阅兵上，解放军海军方阵走过主席台。 （路透社）

中国国防动员法修订草案将初审，修法后将使中共的主张通过法定程序转化为国家意志和人民共同行动。

据中新社报道，国防动员法修订草案星期一（4月27日）提请十四届全国人大常委会第二十二次会议初次审议。

国防动员法是中国国防动员领域的基础性法律，主要功能是规范国防动员工作，明确公民和组织的国防动员权利义务，为建设巩固国防提供法治保障。

报道称，世界上许多国家都出台了国防动员相关法律法规。中国现行国防动员法2010年7月正式实施，对加强国防动员建设、提升国防动员能力等起到了重要作用。经过十几年的实践，法律部分条款内容已不适应国防动员新形势新任务新要求，需要修订完善。

此次修法，主要基于三点考虑：一是贯彻党中央决策部署的需要。国防动员法修订草案规定，“国防动员坚持中国共产党的领导，贯彻习近平强军思想，坚持总体国家安全观，贯彻新时代军事战略方针”，使党的主张通过法定程序转化为国家意志和人民共同行动。

二是完善国防法律制度体系的需要。随着全面依法治国、依法治军深入推进，近年来中国已修订人民武装警察法、国防法、军事设施保护法、兵役法、国防教育法，制定出台海警法、预备役人员法等，为国防建设提供了坚实的法律支撑。国防动员法作为国防领域的重要法律，也要做好修订完善，并与相关法律做好衔接、确保法治协调。

三是依法开展国防动员工作的需要。近年来，中国国防动员体制进行了优化调整，进一步完善了军地有关部门职能职责。全国人大常委会此前作出决定，在深化国防动员体制改革期间暂时调整适用国防动员法部分规定，要求“改革措施成熟后，及时修改完善有关法律”。当前，法律修订时机已成熟，需要通过修法使国防动员法治建设与体制变化相适应相协调，以更加科学高效地开展国防动员工作。

Chief of Staff Susie Wiles will meet with officials to consider updating security plans in the aftermath of Saturday’s shooting.

April 27, 2026 at 4:23 p.m. EDT Yesterday at 4:23 p.m. EDT

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An armed Secret Service agent gestures while responding to a shooting at the annual White House correspondents’ dinner Saturday in Washington. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

By Dan Diamond

The White House is reviewing how best to protect President Donald Trump after Saturday’s shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner raised new questions about the protocols and procedures needed to keep the nation’s leaders safe.

4月28日，印尼两列火车在西爪哇省东勿加泗站相撞，救援人员在一列通勤列车尾部车厢进行救援。 （法新社）

两列火车星期一（4月27日）晚间在印度尼西亚首都雅加达郊外相撞，造成至少五人死亡，数十人受伤。

法新社报道，救援人员星期二（28日）凌晨仍在现场积极开展工作。一名官员告诉法新社，仍有四人被困在残骸中。

铁路运营商KAI的发言人安妮星期二凌晨告诉法新社，事故造成五死亡，79人仍在医院接受观察。

雅加达搜救办公室发言人拉姆利告诉法新社，“救援工作和疏散程序仍在进行中”，仍有四名伤者被困在残骸中，情况不明。

据KAI发言人弗拉诺托称，一辆出租车似乎在平交道口剐蹭了这列通勤列车，迫使列车停在铁轨上。

雅加达警察局长阿塞普说，长途列车撞上通勤列车的最后一节女性专用车厢。

4月28日，印尼两列火车在西爪哇省东勿加泗站相撞，救援人员在一列通勤列车尾部车厢进行救援。（法新社）

他说，所有遇难者都在通勤列车上，另一列火车上的约240名乘客已全部安全疏散。雅加达搜救机构在一份声明中说，此次碰撞导致“多节车厢严重受损”。

声明补充道：“事故造成多名乘客受伤，另有几名受害者因撞击力被困在车厢内。”

事故发生后，火车站一片混乱，救援人员呼喊着要氧气瓶，救护车排队待命，警灯闪烁。救援人员从残骸中救出受困乘客，用担架把他们抬出去，送上等候的救护车。

29岁的萨乌桑因手臂骨折和大腿深切伤口入院。她说，事发时她正下班回家，火车停靠在距离雅加达约25公里的东勿加泗站。

“一切都发生得太快了，就在一瞬间。通勤列车响了两声广播。大家都准备下车，然后突然就听到火车头的轰鸣声，非常响亮。

“根本来不及逃生，所有人都挤在车厢里，互相挤压。我不知道压在我下面的人现在怎么样了。”

救援人员正努力营救更多被困在损毁车厢中的乘客，众议院副议长苏夫米在现场告诉记者，死亡人数可能还会上升。

“从目前仍在进行的疏散工作来看，遇难人数可能还会继续增加。”

Trump’s hypocritical crusade on violent rhetoric — and the country’s emerging split reality

2026-04-27T22:20:55.232Z / CNN

A month ago, President Donald Trump unabashedly celebrated the death of former FBI Director Robert Mueller. “Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” Trump said. “He can no longer hurt innocent people!”

On Monday, Trump and his White House responded to a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this weekend by decrying Democrats’ supposedly beyond-the-pale rhetoric and labeling them a “cult of hatred.”

Their chief example of this kind of rhetoric? ABC comedian Jimmy Kimmel telling a joke that made light of Trump’s potential demise. Days before this weekend’s shooting, Kimmel joked that first lady Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow.”

Apparently, it’s OK for Trump to celebrate a public servant’s death; it is not OK for Jimmy Kimmel to joke about Trump’s.

The shooting at this weekend’s dinner has yet again led Trump and his White House to focus on Democrats’ rhetoric, despite Trump’s own demonstrated history of extremely ugly rhetoric. Republicans are largely repeating a blame game they waged after Charlie Kirk’s assassination last year.

Thus far, the strategy hasn’t appeared to work. Polls show Americans generally view the right’s rhetoric as more violent and dangerous.

But the water is getting muddier.

Episodes of political violence have almost become a choose-your-own-adventure in which many people — on both sides — seem to embrace attractive-but-false narratives about the motivations behind political violence.

And that’s liable to lead to ugly places.

Trump long ago ceded the moral high ground

“This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of Trump and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat Party, and even some in the media,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. “This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump, day after day after day for 11 years, has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment.”

The first thing to note is that definitive statements about alleged shooter motivations this early are generally speculative, at best. Often, reports surface that suggest the perpetrators had mental health issues.

The accused attacker, Cole Tomas Allen, apparently left a paper trail that provides clues about his potential motivation, including social media posts that compared Trump to Adolf Hitler and encouraged others critical of his presidency to purchase guns.

But as with Charlie Kirk’s assassin, it’s difficult to draw such a direct line until you know more.

Secondly, while it’s completely valid to think it was a terrible idea for Kimmel to joke about Trump’s death, the president long ago ceded the moral high ground on such things. Pearl clutching over Kimmel’s jokes or Democrats’ rhetoric without addressing Trump’s own rhetoric is a remarkable exercise in selective outrage.

Trump has, quite simply, crossed the line both more forcefully and more often. There’s the prominent example of the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, when he encouraged his supporters to protest and stayed silent for hours as violence broke out, resulting in multiple deaths, but there’s plenty of other examples, too.

To wit:

• He celebrated Mueller’s death.
• He responded in remarkably callous fashion to the murders of Rob Reiner and his wife in December.
• Despite complaining about the left making Nazi comparisons, he in 2017 compared the intelligence community to “Nazi Germany,” and in 2024 called former President Joe Biden’s team a “Gestapo administration.”
• Despite complaining about the left calling him a “fascist,” he spent years using that word against his foes.
• He made light of a hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband that left him with a fractured skull and other serious injuries.
• He mused about “Second Amendment people” blocking Hillary Clinton from appointing judges.
• He reposted video of a supporter saying, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”
• He reposted a message from a supporter warning about people rising up to “physically fight” for Trump.
• He praised a convoy of supporters who dangerously surrounded Biden’s campaign bus in 2020.
• He praised Montana’s governor for assaulting a reporter.
• He has repeatedly raised hypotheticals in which his supporters rise up in justified violence.

That last one is a particularly important theme. Even as Trump’s White House was assailing Democrats’ rhetoric after Kirk’s death, Trump suggested right-wingers who get politically violent do so for valid reasons, while left-wingers do not.

Trump’s comments on Mueller’s death were in a similar vein. Maybe it’s gauche to celebrate death, he seemed to be saying, but just think about how much damage this guy did.

It’s the kind of calculus that plenty of others have used to justify political violence.

A skewed picture of recent political violence

Beyond that, the avoided tragedy this weekend has cast a spotlight on an increasingly inauspicious trend: Lots of people are developing a warped view of who perpetrated political violence.

Prominent Republicans have for years leapt to attach tragedies to the left, often before there’s real evidence and before investigators have reached conclusions. The reality is that many people who commit or attempt political violence don’t fall cleanly into one label or another.

To this day, many state it as a fact that would-be Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks was a leftist, even though he was a registered Republican who remains something of a black box. A similar dynamic played out with Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman’s assassin.

On the left, even some prominent figures strained to believe Kirk’s assassin was a MAGA supporter or a right-wing “groyper,” which the evidence does not back up.

That’s not to say the two sides are equal-opportunity offenders. Prominent Republicans have clearly jumped to conclusions much more than Democrats in recent years, including when many major right-wingers theorized that Paul Pelosi’s attack was the result of a gay lover’s feud.

But the split reality is a growing problem.

What polling shows

At least for now, Trump and the GOP’s purported belief that Democrats are the worse offenders doesn’t seem to be shared by the public.

A Gallup poll in October, shortly after Kirk’s assassination, showed 69% of Americans said Republicans had gone too far in using inflammatory language, compared to 60% who said the same of Democrats.

But the two sides were overwhelmingly likely to blame the other for the actual violence.

A recent Public Religion Research Institute poll showed 72% of Republicans said Democrats were responsible for most political violence, while 73% of Democrats said Republicans were most responsible.

(The data suggests it’s actually the right that has perpetrated more political violence for decades, though there is evidence the left has closed the gap since Trump returned as president.)

And there’s an increasing perceived linkage between rhetoric and violence.

Since the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, NBC News polling has repeatedly asked people whether major examples of political violence were driven more by “a disturbed person” or “extreme political rhetoric.”

The percentage who blamed political rhetoric more has increased from 24% in 2011, to 41% in 2017 (after the congressional baseball shooting), to 49% in 2022 (the Pelosi attack), to 54% in 2024 (Trump’s assassination attempt), to 61% last year (Kirk’s assassination).

Remarkably, majorities of both sides agreed that rhetoric was more to blame for Kirk’s assassination — 54% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans.

But it seems quite possible both sides might be attaching it to the other side’s rhetoric, rather than their own.

So what we have is a situation in which the two sides each see one another as the culprits behind growing dangerous rhetoric that they increasingly connect directly to actual violence.

That’s not a recipe for taking the temperature down; it’s a recipe for politics to descend into darker and darker places.