Bombs sent to Trump’s foes
‘‘President Trump’s words ring hollow until he reverses his statements that condone acts of violence.’’ Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
In the home stretch of the midterm campaign, President Donald Trump has called Democrats ‘‘evil’’ and argued they are ‘‘too dangerous to govern’’.
He has denounced Barack Obama’s presidency and demonised former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, inspiring chants at his rallies of ‘‘Lock her up!’’
The president has also used his bully pulpit to taunt Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., as a ‘‘low-I.Q. individual,’’ impugn former CIA director John Brennan and fan conspiracy theories about liberal philanthropist George Soros. And he has called the news media ‘‘the enemy of the people,’’ singling out CNN’s reporting as ‘‘fake news.’’
Yesterday, these targets of Trump’s rhetoric became the intended targets of actual violence in the form of suspected explosive devices or suspicious packages.
Investigators have not disclosed information about the origin of the packages, and no evidence has surfaced connecting the acts to any political campaign. Still, a common theme among the targets was unmistakable: each has been a recurring subject of Trump attacks.
Law enforcement authorities said packages containing devices and addressed to the homes of Obama and Clinton were intercepted by the Secret Service, while an explosive device was found at Soros’s home.
In addition, a suspicious package addressed to Brennan was found at CNN’s New York headquarters and another, addressed to Waters, was discovered at a congressional mail sorting facility. A similar package was also found addressed to former attorney general Eric Holder Jr.
Trump and other Republican leaders rushed yesterday to decry the thwarted attacks on Democrats and CNN, saying that such acts cannot be tolerated. For many politicians, the day was a reckoning – a sobering pause just 13 days from Election Day to reflect on a political atmosphere notable for apocalyptic imagery and violent confrontations.
Speaking from the East Room of the White House, Trump said he and officials in his administration were ‘‘extremely angry, upset, unhappy about what we witnessed’’ and vowed that ‘‘the safety of the American people is my highest and absolute priority.’’
The president sounded a call to all Americans to unite, though he did not address the poisonous tone of his own campaign rhetoric.
‘‘We have to come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America,’’ Trump said.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., responded in a joint statement: ‘‘President Trump’s words ring hollow until he reverses his statements that condone acts of violence.’’
They went on to argue that Trump has ‘‘divided Americans with his words and actions,’’ citing his cheers for Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., for bodyslamming a journalist; his equivocations over the deadly neo-Nazi and white supremacist rally in August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia; his encouragement of supporters at rallies who have gotten violent with protesters; his praise for foreign dictators who murder their own citizens; and his attacks on the free press as ‘‘the enemy of the people.’’
Jon Meacham, a journalist and historian who authored the book, The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels, said the most divisive political periods of the nation’s history have resulted in violence against political figures. He said he has long worried history could repeat itself in the Trump era.
‘‘We have examples of political violence in the United States in the age of Jackson, in the road to Civil War, during the Civil War, in the Progressive Era and in the cataclysm of the 1960s,’’ Meacham said. ‘‘What happened today is a reminder of the stakes of the era in which we’re living. This is an era of fundamental redefinition of politics and culture. It requires leadership that is steadying, not incendiary, and we’ve seen far too much incendiary language from the top.’’
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders characterised the mailing of explosive devices as ‘‘terrorising acts,’’ while prominent Republican lawmakers condemned it as a cowardly attack aimed at terrorising public figures. There were widespread calls to quickly bring to justice those responsible.
‘‘The full weight of our government is being deployed to conduct this investigation and bring those responsible for these despicable acts to justice,’’ Trump said.
Clinton, speaking at a fundraiser for congressional candidate Donna Shalala in Coral Gables, Florida, thanked the Secret Service for intercepting the package addressed to her home and called it ‘‘a troubling time.’’
‘‘It is a time of deep divisions and we have to do everything we can to bring our country together,’’ she said.
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., who survived a shooting of lawmakers at a baseball field in 2017, wrote in tweets, ‘‘These attempted attacks that have been made are beyond criminal, they are acts of pure terror. Violence and terror have no place in our politics or anywhere else in our society.’’
– Washington Post