Transcription
Well, Donald Trump was just cornered with a list of right-wing political terrorism attacks after he spent weeks trying to build this story where political violence in America comes from the left. Antifa, Black Lives Matter, flag burners, sort of the usual caricatures. And then yesterday, the entire thing collapsed because standing in the Oval Office, CBS reporter Nancy Cords finally did what journalists should have been doing for a very long time, and that's putting the receipts right in front of Donald Trump.
Now, we've known for a long time that overwhelmingly political violence in the United States is right-wing. That doesn't mean we excuse left-wing instances of it. It doesn't mean we condone violence. It doesn't mean that we say that violence of any kind or using guns to solve political or cultural social problems is okay. Of course not. We denounce all political violence. But we also don't miss the forest for the trees and delude ourselves into believing that this is overwhelmingly or even disproportionately a left-wing problem.
And so Nancy Cord said, "Hold on, Mr. President. We have, of course, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, whose motives, by the way, we still don't know. And as complicated and convoluted as they might be, uh, we we simply don't know right now whether the motivations were left or right-wing. But what about the example of Minnesota Democrat Melissa Hortman just months ago? What about the attack against Paul Pelosi in his own home? What about the shooting of Gabby Gfords? What about the uh attack on the Pennsylvania governor's mansion where, by the way, I was just yesterday with Governor Shapiro looking at where that damage recovery has been taking place and getting a firsthand look at that terrifying arson attack. What about that?"
I saw it firsthand yesterday and for a very brief second, I mean, this is like very, very brief, you could see that Donald Trump was cornered here. Do you think it would have been fitting to lower the flags to have staff when Melissa Horman, the Minnesota House Speaker, was gunned down by an assassin as well? Uh, I'm not familiar. The the Minnesota House Speaker, a Democrat, was assassinated this summer. Well, if the governor had asked me to do that, I would have done that. But the governor of Minnesota didn't ask me. I didn't uh I wouldn't have thought of that, but I would have if somebody had asked me. People make requests for the lowering of flag and it's always someone else's fault. Often times you have to say no because it would be a lot of lowering. The flag would never be up. Had the governor of Minnesota asked me to do that I would have done that gladly. I'm given the kill.
Now this is really the moment when the entire narrative should shatter. Now Donald Trump gave a non-answer. He always gives a non-answer. you know, he kind of tilts his head back and he goes, "Well, you know, it was I I wasn't asked to lower it in that case." The translation here is I don't really want to acknowledge instances of right-wing violence. I don't lowering the flag to half mast after a Democrat was killed would be in some way acknowledging the right-wing violence. And I don't want to do that.
Now remember that just the day before Donald Trump said this is a this is just a problem on the left. This is not a problem on the right. Now I might argue demonizing the left absent evidence is actually the problem. But Trump says there's no problem on the right. [Music] Well the problem is on the left. If you look at the problem the problem is on the left. It's not on the right like some people like to say on the right. The problem we have is on the left. And when you look at the agitators, uh the the you look at the the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag burnings all over the place, that's the left. That's the scum of the left is the problem. Really presidential language, really unifying language that's going to bring this country together.
Now, as I always do on this program, I don't claim to be the ultimate source of truth. You can fact check me and you can fact check Donald Trump. I welcome that. Don't take my word for it. Go to the FBI data. Go to the DHS data. Go to the independent terrorism re researchers, CSIS and the ADL and others. They all have come to the same conclusion. The vast majority of political violence in this country comes from the right. It's not a left-wing talking point. It's a factual talking point. And the list is very long. Charlottesville, January 6th. The El Paso shooter who targeted Latinos. The Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh. Paul Pelosi getting his skull bashed in with a hammer by a guy who uh was looking for Nancy Pelosi. Melissa Hortman in Minnesota gunned down this summer.
When you line it all up, Trump's story, Steven Miller's story, J. D. Vance's story, it doesn't just fall apart. It becomes insulting and it's of course dangerous gaslighting because it is potentially, and I would argue probably going to turn violence against people seen as being on the left. And by the way, this is the same Trump who ordered flags at half staff for right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk who listen we don't who who once called for the uh death penalty to be given to Joe Biden. So what we need to sort of consider here and acknowledge is that to Trump some lives just matter a little bit more than others. If you're loyal to Trump you're a heroic martyr. They talk about putting you on Mount Rushmore. They say that you're a civil rights leader. They equate you to Martin Luther King Jr. even though Charlie Kirk didn't have the most positive things to say about Martin Luther King Jr. and if you're not a Trump loyalist, but you're similarly gunned down, you're not a hero. You're not a martyr. You're more disposable than anything else.
And then that gets us to Steven Miller. Steven Miller sort of always lurking in the background like that. Uh well, let me not make any insulting analogies. always lurking in the background jumps in to say that the administration is going to crack down on people paying for violence. What does that even mean? Now, we're going to get to Steven Miller later. deserves its own discussion. But Miller is now repeating this sort of Tucker Carlson fanfiction conspiracy type stuff that NOS are handing out checks and hammers to protesters and uh it's all part of the authoritarian playbook which is you take a normal constitutionally protected protest activity and you blur the line between protesting and violence and then you crack down and then they can So, we were just targeting violent extremists, not speech. But the truth is that they want to target speech. They want to target disscent. Trump is now not so sure about the First Amendment. Terrifying, chilling, dystopian stuff, which we'll delve into in a little bit.
And it's gone way beyond just Donald Trump. Um, Steven Miller, as I mentioned, JD Vance filling in for Charlie Kirk on his podcast yesterday. They're reading from the same script and you got to hand it to them. Uh, they're on message. They're they're they're on message. The left is violent. They are the greatest threat. We've got to crack down. Disscent is becoming violence. And we've got to jump in there. But who's been shot? Who's been killed? Overwhelmingly, statistically, it's Democrats. It's synagogue congregants. It's immigrants. It's abortion providers. The violence is overwhelmingly coming from Trump's side and somehow he's coni convincing millions of people that they are the victim.
So there is hypocrisy. The hypocrisy doesn't matter anymore. The right doesn't expect consistency, moral consistency, factual consistency. They don't care. Double standards. It's just whatever's convenient today. But there is a broader strategy here because if Trump admits the violence is mostly from the right, he has to admit that his movement is fueling it. Because if he goes and looks and says 90% of the violence is right-wing, MAGA has been the American right-wing for 10 years, it logically points to Trump is part of the problem, which of course he is. So he inverts reality. He says it's the left, it's the flag burners, it's the scum, he says, and his base just eats it up. You look on Twitter, you see that they're eating it up. Uh the reality check is as follows. You can't make political violence go away by pointing fingers. You can make it worse by denying where it's coming from and not dealing with the rot within his own party.
And when the president of the United States refuses to lower the flag for a murdered Democrat, but lowers it for Charlie Kirk, it's not just bias. It is bias, but it's authoritarianism. It's the state picking winners and losers based only on one factor. It's the thing that's been most important to Trump forever. Loyalty to the leader. and now they're coming for the First Amendment.
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