Washington Post correspondent Leigh Ann Caldwell fact-checked the claim that only former President Donald Trump has faced efforts at assassination recently — saying, “We don’t know that” Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t had people try to kill her.
Shots were fired at Trump International golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, Sunday afternoon in what turned out to be a failed assassination plot allegedly carried out by suspect Ryan Wesley Routh, who is in custody. The suspect fired no shots and never had a line of sight to Trump.
Sunday’s incident occurred two months, almost to the day after the July 13 assassination attempt that left Trump bloodied and a supporter dead.
On Tuesday afternoon’s edition of CNN’s Inside Politics, Bash asked Caldwell to weigh in on comments that Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) made claiming that the fact that “two people tried to kill” Trump is evidence that the left needs to “tone down the rhetoric”:
DANA BASH: Long after the incident on Sunday, which certainly does feel like an apparent assassination attempt. And not me saying that, that’s law enforcement– Elon Musk put something on his social media platform X asking why Kamala Harris was also– has also not been targeted. And then he deleted it.
JD Vance said something a bit different, but similar yesterday in Atlanta. Let’s listen.
JD VANCE: I’m not going to say we’re always perfect. I’m not going to say that conservatives always get things exactly right.
But, you know, the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that we ha– 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’d say that’s pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric and needs to cut this crap out!
DANA BASH: Leigh Ann?
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: So, well. First, we don’t know that no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months. This is the Secret Service’s job to keep keep people safe.
There are threats on a daily basis of the president, the vice president, elected officials, members of Congress.
But JD Vance is also the person who started the false rumors more than a week ago about Springfield, Ohio, about– false claims, about the Haitian immigrants there. And that has led to bomb threats, school evacuations, city hall evacuations and an a feeling of terror in that community. As far as reporting is concerned. So, you know, there’s a complete double standard here. And, you know, I don’t see that this political rhetoric that’s on, you know, is going to die down. Seems like the Trump campaign, based on what has happened in the past couple of days, is only going to continue to escalate.
Vice President Harris came within 20 feet of a pipe bomb that was planted on January 6.
Watch above via CNN’s Inside Politics.
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