JD Vance has called for the heat to be taken out of American political debate after what appears to be a second assassination attempt against running mate Donald Trump.
But the Republican vice presidential candidate still appeared to blame Democrats for the threats to the former president’s life, saying Monday that “the big difference between conservatives and liberals is no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris.”
Appearing in public for the first time since the foiled assassination attempt on Sunday, Vance asserted that Democrats need to “cut this crap out” and “tone down the rhetoric.”
He later denied any responsibility for over 30 bomb threats made in Springfield, Ohio, after he and Trump repeatedly pushed false claims about Haitian migrants eating people’s pets there.
Authorities arrested a suspected would-be assassin who fled Trump International Golf Course in Florida on Sunday. FBI officials said a Secret Service agent saw a rifle barrel sticking out of the chain link fence near where Trump was playing a round of golf, leading them to fire at the suspect—they found an AK-47, two backpacks, and a GoPro camera at the scene.
The Florida suspect, Ryan Routh, is not registered with either party, though he previously made small donations to Democrats after claiming to have voted for Trump in 2016. Thomas Crooks, the man who wounded Trump at a Pennsylvania rally in an assassination attempt earlier this summer, was a registered Republican and, according to FBI officials, may have also wanted to target President Joe Biden.
Vance, speaking in Atlanta to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, pledged to “do my part to tone down the rhetoric” before adding, “to the people telling you Donald Trump needs to be ‘eliminated,’ you guys need to cut it out or you’re going to get somebody hurt.” He was referring to a November 2023 remark made by Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who apologized a day later.
“We can disagree with one another, we can debate one another,” said Vance. “But we cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist and if he’s elected it’s going to be the end of American democracy.”
Trump, meanwhile, called America under Biden a “fascist state” after he became a convicted felon in July.
Shortly after his address ended, Vance tweeted a message to supporters which—while repeating his call to “tone down the rhetoric”—proceeded to tell followers to “reject censorship” and attacked media organizations for correctly reporting that bomb threats were made to schools and government buildings following his repeated false claims that Haitian migrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets, even as the state’s Republican governor has said there’s no evidence to support them.
