President’s rhetoric linked to targets of explosive devices
WASHINGTON — The recipients of explosive devices sent this week have so far shared a commonality: harsh criticism by President Donald Trump and far-right followers.
But White House officials were in no mood Wednesday to entertain the notion that the president’s descriptions of Democrats as “evil” and news organizations as the “enemy of the people” might have helped lead a bomber to build devices and mail them to Democratic mega-donor George Soros, former President Barack Obama, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and CNN. A building in Miami that houses an office for former Democratic National Committee head Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was also evacuated Wednesday.
Trump’s aides declined to comment beyond a statement from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders condemning what she called “attempted violent attacks recently made against President Obama, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, and other public figures.”
“These terrorizing acts are despicable, and anyone responsible will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. The United States Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies are investigating and will take all appropriate actions to protect anyone threatened by these cowards,” Sanders said. Vice President Mike Pence later tweeted his condemnation of the attempted bombings; Trump tweeted this agreement.
But the matter has one glaring common denominator: Trump’s sharp rhetoric about each recipient and a highly partisan midterm election that has only deepened a widely divided country’s tribal wounds.
“Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!” chanted a rally crowd Monday night in Houston, where Trump was firing up the base as he and Sen. Ted Cruz tried to keep the senator’s seat in Republican hands.
Trump pivoted from one topic to the next in the manner that defines his raucous stream-of-consciousness rallies, heading straight toward a line sure to ignite the Toyota Center crowd: “If you want the fake news to finally investigate Hillary Clinton, we’ll just have ... “
That’s when the familiar chant broke out.
“Man,” an impressed Trump said before trying to pass off any responsibility: “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.” But if the president was concerned his constant calls for his former political foe to face a federal investigation, it certainly didn’t stop him.
“So if you want them to investigate, we’ll just have to nominate Hillary Clinton to the United States Supreme Court. How do you like that?” he said as the crowd booed loudly. “Right? Let’s see how she does. If (Justice Brett) Kavanaugh had to go through what he went through ... can you imagine Hillary up there? That would take three to four years of questions.”
His supporters laughed in unison.
Trump used the line about Clinton to move into his ramped-up rhetoric about all Democrats, saying the midterms are all about preventing “the radical Democrat mob” from taking “a giant wrecking ball and destroy our country and our economy.”
Monday night’s rally alone featured multiple sharp attacks on Democrats as the president eagerly accuses the opposition party of being the “party of crime” that wants to allow undocumented migrants pour over the U.S.-Mexico border to flood the country with crime and drugs while raising taxes and ending programs like Social Security and Medicaid.