The hosts of ABC's The View examined the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump while he played golf in Palm Beach, Florida, this weekend and condemned the incident while questioning whether the normalization of political violence, threats, hate speech, and the "fascination with guns " were to blame for the incident.
Co-host Ana Navarro analyzed that political violence has "very much" become a part of America on both sides of the political aisle.
“We condemn it no matter who it’s perpetrated on or attempted on. But what America do these folks live in that they think there’s no space for political violence?” she said on Monday to her co-hosts. “When Gabby Giffords, the congresswoman from Arizona, got shot in the head at an event in her district, when the congressional baseball team got shot at.”
“When Nancy Pelosi’s husband got his skull bashed in with a hammer from a political enemy,” Navarro continued. “When we had Jan. 6, when people raided and stormed the Capitol. When, you know, we’ve had now two different attempts on Donald Trump.”
“Let me tell you: Bomb threats in Springfield, I consider that political violence,” she said. “Threats against Taylor Swift because she made an endorsement, which we all have a right to do, I consider that political violence.”
Navarro said there needs to be gun control reforms to keep people with mental health problems away from "easy access to assault weapons."
"We need to have that conversation in America. It needs to be bipartisan, and members of coverage Congress need to realize when there’s a crazy shooter out there, it’s not just Democrats. It's everything, and we're all at risk," she said.
"Maybe it's less about mental health and more about America’s fascination with guns?" co-host Sunny Hostin asked.
Navarro and co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin chimed in that it was "maybe both" reasons.
"I am so saddened and disturbed by the fact that political violence is so normalized in this country. It’s something that I think we started seeing when Steve Scalise was injured, and then I think we saw more of it, especially with Nancy Pelosi’s husband, and so it’s on both sides of the aisle. It’s all over the country," Hostin said to the panel on Monday.
Hostin listed several statistics about the growth of the support for political violence.
Co-host Sara Haines shared that she would like to see Congress regulate hate speech on social media despite acknowledging that the country values the First Amendment.
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"We have to elevate our rhetoric. … There’s a point where there’s an 'out of bounds' and then there’s no longer a bounds at all. People will say and do anything, and it’s not just on the national level," she said. "There's always been hate speech. Now the reach of that hate speech is great."
Haines added, "The one step before violence is that hate speech. We have no regulation because we live in a country that — I understand values the First Amendment, but there’s got to be a way that whether it’s regulating social media. Communities have to come together and change this."
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