US governor likens Trump comments to pre-Rabin assassination rhetoric
Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy drew a comparison Tuesday in an interview with MSNBC between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recent comments regarding the Second Amendment and rhetoric sounded in Israel during Yitzhak Rabin’s reign as prime minister, leading up to his assassination in 1995.
Trump suggested on Tuesday that gun-rights activists could act to stop Democratic rival Hillary Clinton from nominating liberal US Supreme Court justices, igniting yet another firestorm of criticism just as he sought to steer clear of controversy.
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks,” Trump said of Clinton at the rally. “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know,” he continued.
The US Constitution’s Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear firearms.
Immediately after he made his comment, many on social media accused him of effectively calling for Clinton’s assassination.
“I instantly thought about Rabin in Israel,” Malloy said in reaction to Trump. “There were rallies going on where ‘death to Rabin’ was being shouted and politicians didn’t respond, so I’m going to respond [to Trump].”
“This is insanity,” he said. “It’s a sickness, it’s an evil, and Republicans and Democrats and Independents have to stand up to reject this, otherwise the insanity will play out in our own country and overall existence.”
Before the remark, Trump had been emphasizing his case against Clinton, who is leading in national opinion polls in the race for the November 8 election. Some in the audience in North Carolina who were seated behind Trump could be seen wincing when he made the comment.
Clinton’s campaign called the remark “dangerous.”
“A person seeking to be the president of the United States should not suggest violence in any way,” it said.
When asked to clarify what Trump meant, his campaign said he was referring to getting supporters of the Second Amendment to rally votes for Trump in the election.
“It’s called the power of unification – 2nd Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power,” the Trump campaign said in its statement.
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani accused the news media of taking the remark out of context to help Clinton get elected.
“What he meant by that was you have the power to vote against her,” he said to cheers. “You have the power to speak against her. You know why? Because you’re Americans.”
“It proves that most of the press is in the tank for Hillary Clinton,” Giuliani added. “They are doing everything they can to destroy Donald Trump.”
The US Secret Service, which provides security details for both Trump and Clinton and rarely comments on political matters, when asked for a response on Trump, said: “The Secret Service is aware of the comment.”
Trump’s comments were “not a dog whistle” but rather a call for confrontation that must be rejected, Malloy said.
“The country has had enough assassination and enough death,” he said.
Malloy urged Americans to exercise their right to vote in order to put a stop to Trump’s “sick bravado.”
“I am infuriated that someone running for the highest office in the nation would play with that sort of language,” he said.