State Auditor Shad White and U.S. Rep. Michael Guest were among the Republican politicians who took to social media to blame Joe Biden and the Democratic Party for the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Reasonable people of all political persuasions agreed the assassination attempt, which resulted in the death of one Trump rally attendee, was tragic and antithetical to American values.
But some went further.
White, for instance, took to social media as he is wont to do and posted, “Biden just called on the nation to ‘lower the temperature’ in politics. That’s rich. He should have apologized for calling President Trump a ‘genuine threat to this nation,’ ‘literally a threat,’ saying he ‘could become the dictator that he promised to be on day one,’ and on and on.”
Guest, a former district attorney for Madison and Rankin counties, included the media as part of the blame. “For months, President Biden and Democrats have been demonizing President Trump and claiming he was a threat to America. The events of yesterday should not have surprised anyone and the blame lays squarely at the feet of President Biden, progressive Democrats and the liberal media that have amplified these baseless allegations,” the congressman proclaimed.
Both are correct. Rightfully or wrongfully, there have been many harsh comments leveled at the former president over the threat he poses to America. But what White and Guest conveniently omitted from their recent diatribes is that countless of these such comments have been made by their fellow Republicans — and people with firsthand experience with Trump’s alarming behavior.
Former Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence, when announcing he would not endorse Trump this election cycle, said: “I believe anyone that puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States, and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again.”
In his book, Pence detailed the attack on the U.S. Capitol that occurred on Jan. 6, 2021. On that day, of course, Pence was fulfilling his constitutional duty to certify Biden as the rightful winner of the 2020 election. But a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol — the first such Capitol ambush since the War of 1812 — looking to halt the nation’s constitutional process for certifying a duly-elected president and to stop Pence by force from fulfilling his duty.
In the memoir, Pence referenced Trump’s tweet that said Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution.”
“I just shook my head,” Pence wrote. “The truth was, as reckless as the president’s tweet was, I really didn’t have time for it. Rioters were ransacking the Capitol. … The president had decided to be part of the problem. I was determined to be part of the solution.”
Let’s look at other claims about Trump, such as from Kevin McCarthy, who on that pivotal-to-democracy Jan. 6 day was the House Republican leader.
“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” McCarthy said at the time. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.”
Referring to the Jan. 6 riots and the attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said, “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
During Trump’s term as president, as Black Lives Matters supporters were protesting near the White House, Mark Esper, appointed by Trump as U.S. secretary of defense, said Trump asked him, “Can’t you just shoot them? Shoot them in the leg or something.” Esper and Trump’s other military leaders refused to order action against people exercising their constitutional right of protest, he said.
There are countless other examples of harsh criticism of Trump’s threat to the nation leveled at the former president by Republicans.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has made many derogatory comments about Trump. Referring to the Jan. 6 riots, Graham said, “When it comes to accountability, (Trump) needs to understand that his actions were the problem not the solution.” Graham later referred to Trump’s 2020 voter fraud allegations as unserious and on “the third grade level.”
Trump’s appointed United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who ran unsuccessfully against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination this year, said of Trump in the days following Jan. 6: “He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas called Trump a “pathological liar” and a “sniveling coward.” Of course, Cruz made those comments after the former president said the senator’s father might have been involved in the Kennedy assassination and made fun of Cruz’s wife’s appearance.
Granted, Graham, Haley and Cruz have since backtracked of their criticism of Trump, as most Republican politicians have done at some point.
But before White, Guest and others start casting stones and blaming their political opponents for rhetoric about Trump’s threat to the nation, they may want to consider their fellow partymates’ own words.
After all, a former roommate of U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, now named as Trump’s vice presidential choice for 2024, screen saved and revealed for the world to see a message that Vance wrote in 2016: “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.”
Yes, those Republicans should watch what they say about Donald Trump.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
