MSNBC anchor Alex Witt questioned whether former President Donald Trump should consider “toning down” his rhetoric Sunday following what may have been an assassination attempt on the former president.
Secret Service agents evacuated the former president from the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida after Secret Service agents reportedly fired at a man carrying a semi-automatic rifle who got within 500 yards of Trump, who was playing a round of golf. Witt and MSNBC political analyst Elise Jordan discussed whether Trump would urge his supporters to “take the temperature down.”
“We have seen, Alex, just the cycle of political extremism at play, unfortunately, over the last, you know, really, decade of American politics. Polling, the Lincoln Democracy Institute did a great poll on political extremism last year and one of the findings was that over 50% of Americans no longer see the political opposition as trustworthy opponents, they see them as untrustworthy enemies,” Jordan told Witt hours before law enforcement confirmed that Trump was the target of an assassination attempt. “And so, on the scales of radicalization by what, you know, after 9/11, the scales that were used to gauge radicalism and extremism in the Middle East, by that criteria, almost 13% of Americans are actually political extremists that are radicalized and it’s very scary.”
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“How have we gotten to this point, when the demonization of the other side, where we simply it’s no longer politics, it’s gotten bigger than that, the calls for violence, the violent rhetoric and look at what happens. And this heated rhetoric can only go so far before, unfortunately, it has led to violence on both sides of the aisle, and so I think it is something that Democrats and Republicans have to be very cognizant about,” Jordan continued. “What can we all do to take the temperature down?”
Guests and hosts on MSNBC have previously labeled Trump as a racist, a threat to democracy, fascist and even mentally unstable on the air.
“Do you expect to hear anything from the Trump campaign about toning down the rhetoric, toning down the violence, or would that be atypical of the former president?” Witt asked Jordan after noting that Trump would be reaching out to his supporters after the incident, citing the lack of details surrounding the incident.
“Well, Alex, remember back to the assassination attempt from President Trump’s life how there was talk of a new tone and the Republican convention was, by Trumpian standards, muted and it did seem like he was trying to take it down a few notches, then by the end of his convention speech, we were back to where we started, so I don’t know how long this moment of unity for the country where we come together and we say I don’t want any political opposition to be under threat of violence.”
Trump was shot and slightly wounded on his right ear during an assassination attempt during a July 13 campaign rally in Butler Township, Pennsylvania, that left former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore dead and two other attendees wounded.
Featured Image Credit: U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
