The former president’s running mate also said that “censorship” lead to political violence.
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Senator JD Vance spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition dinner in Atlanta on Monday.
Senator JD Vance of Ohio, in his first public remarks since the apparent assassination attempt on Donald J. Trump, condemned on Monday the inflammatory rhetoric “coming from too many corners of our politics.” But he took specific aim at Democrats, accusing them of going too far in casting Mr. Trump’s potential re-election as the end of democracy.
“I’m not going to say conservatives always get things exactly right,” Mr. Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, told the crowd at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event in Atlanta on Monday evening.
But, he continued, “no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months. I think that’s pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric or somebody is going to get hurt.”
In a social media post after his speech, Mr. Vance again blamed Democrats for the assassination attempts and added that “censorship” also plays a role in political violence. Mr. Vance and Mr. Trump have been criticized for spreading unfounded claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets in the town of Springfield, Ohio — claims that were followed by bomb threats targeting city schools. Mr. Vance has defended elevating the debunked rumors by arguing that he is drawing attention to other issues affecting the town that, in his view, have been caused by Democrats and ignored.
“Embrace censorship, and you will inevitably embrace violence on its behalf,” Mr. Vance wrote on X.
Before President Biden dropped out of the race, he campaigned heavily on portraying Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy. Vice President Kamala Harris has touched on it, too, but made it less of a focus of her campaign.
But Mr. Trump has often used violent language to describe his political rivals, likening them to “vermin” that he has pledged to “root out.” Earlier on Monday, he echoed Mr. Vance’s claim that “inflammatory language” from Democrats had provoked Sunday’s incident in West Palm Beach, Fla., and then called Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris the “enemy from within” and “the real threat.”
Mr. Vance said he first learned about the suspect’s arrest in a phone call from Mr. Trump. “JD, you’re not going to believe it, but they tried to do it again,” Mr. Vance recalled the former president telling him.
Mr. Vance said he had asked Mr. Trump if he was OK, and the former president told him he was fine — but upset because he was about to putt for birdie when the Secret Service interrupted the game.
“That is the kind of guy that you want to be president,” Mr. Vance said to applause from the Atlanta crowd. “He’s fazed by nothing and telling jokes afterward.”
Michael C. Bender is a Times political correspondent covering Donald J. Trump, the Make America Great Again movement and other federal and state elections. More about Michael C. Bender
See more on: Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, 2024 Elections: News, Polls and Analysis, U.S. Politics
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Source: nytimes.com
