President Donald Trump struck a unifying note in the immediate aftermath of Saturday's shooting at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, calling on Americans to resolve differences peacefully. By Monday, his administration had pivoted sharply, with top officials accusing Democrats and journalists of fueling the violence through inflammatory rhetoric.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche directly challenged reporters in the briefing room, saying members of the media bore responsibility for the state of political violence. "Many people in this room, if we're going to be honest about it, have done it," Blanche said, pointing to coverage he characterized as unfairly harsh. He drew parallels between media criticism and social media attacks, suggesting both contributed to a climate of hostility.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt framed the issue in terms of sustained demonization. She argued that "systemic" attacks on Trump and his supporters by Democratic lawmakers and commentators over more than a decade had "legitimized this violence." Communications Director Steven Cheung went further, explicitly linking Saturday's shooting to what he called "violent rhetoric from deranged liberals and biased media outlets."
Trump's own public statements reinforced this narrative. During a "60 Minutes" interview aired Sunday, he said "the hate speech of the Democrats much more so is very dangerous." On Monday, he escalated by singling out late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, demanding his firing over a joke about Melania Trump being "a glow like an expectant widow." Trump called Kimmel's monologue "despicable" and "a call to violence," posting on Truth Social that Disney and ABC should immediately remove him from the air.
Melania Trump joined the criticism, characterizing Kimmel's words as "corrosive" rhetoric intended to divide the country. Neither ABC, Disney, nor Kimmel's representatives responded to requests for comment. Kimmel had been briefly taken off the air in the previous year following Trump-backed pressure after he criticized Republicans.
The Republican National Committee amplified the message through a detailed social media thread Monday listing what it called "examples of Democrats' violent rhetoric," including video clips of Democratic lawmakers describing Trump as a "fascist" and a "threat to democracy."
Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who became a focus of Leavitt's criticism over an earlier post mentioning "maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time" in connection with Virginia redistricting, refused to retreat from his language. "Political violence in any form, directed at anyone, whether that's the right, the left or the center is unacceptable. Period, full stop," Jeffries said, while defending his own phrasing and dismissing Republican complaints as coming from "phony Republicans."
Democrats more broadly condemned the shooting and thanked law enforcement. Many highlighted their efforts to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which houses the Secret Service.
The suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of California, faces charges including attempted assassination of the president. This marks the third attack on Trump in 2024. After the first two assassination attempts, Trump allies similarly blamed Democratic political messaging about Trump posing a threat to democracy, though no evidence has surfaced linking such arguments to those incidents.
Trump's own history of inflammatory language adds complexity to the blame game. NBC News previously reported that nearly two dozen elected officials faced real-world threats after Trump publicly criticized them. Last year he called for certain members of Congress to be executed for what he described as "seditious behavior," comments he later walked back.
The shift from Trump's initial post-shooting call for unity to Monday's coordinated finger-pointing from his administration underscored how quickly the incident had become absorbed into partisan warfare. Where Trump initially praised the "tremendous amount of love and coming together" he witnessed at the dinner, his officials were now using the violence as ammunition in their broader case against political opponents.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "The whiplash from 'let's come together' to 'the other side caused this' happened in about 24 hours, which tells you everything about how these moments get weaponized immediately."
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