OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Vice President Kamala Harris has responded after being accused by Republican Senate Minority Leader and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House and Louisiana Republican Rep. Mike Johnson of “inviting” another assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump with her rhetoric.
And rather than backtracking, the vice president chose to continue calling her opponent a “threat,” Fox News reported.
She continued to hammer “the danger and the threat that Donald Trump poses to America and the fact that he is unfit to serve.”
“Well, listen, we all must speak out against any form of political violence, and I’m very clear about that. No one should be the subject of violence,” she said to reporters.
“But the American people deserve to be presented with facts and the truth. And the fact and the truth is that some of the people closest to Donald Trump when he was president, generals, including most recently, John Kelly, a four-star Marine General, have been very clear about the danger and the threat that Donald Trump poses to America and the fact that he is unfit to serve. And the American People deserve to hear that and know about that,” she said.
Speaker Johnson and Senate Minority Leader McConnell issued the rare joint press release on Friday.
“This summer, after the first attempted assassination of a presidential candidate in more than a century, President Biden insisted that ‘we can’t allow this violence to be normalized.’ In September, after President Trump escaped yet another close call, Vice President Harris acknowledged that ‘we all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence,’” the Republicans said.
“These words have proven hollow. In the weeks since that second sobering reminder, the Democratic nominee for President of the United States has only fanned the flames beneath a boiling cauldron of political animus. Her most recent and most reckless invocations of the darkest evil of the 20th century seem to dare it to boil over. The Vice President’s words more closely resemble those of President Trump’s second would-be assassin than her own earlier appeal to civility,” the pair said.
“The man who was caught waiting in ambush in Florida left others with a chilling call to arms: ‘It is up to you now to finish the job’. Labeling a political opponent as a ‘fascist,’ risks inviting yet another would-be assassin to try robbing voters of their choice before Election Day,” they said.
“Vice President Harris may want the American people to entrust her with the sacred duty of executive authority. But first, she must abandon the base and irresponsible rhetoric that endangers both American lives and institutions. We have both been briefed on the ongoing and persistent threats to former President Donald Trump by adversaries to the United States, and we call on the Vice President to take these threats seriously, stop escalating the threat environment, and help ensure President Trump has the necessary resources to be protected from those threats,” they said.
Sadly, those pleas have fallen on deaf ears as she continued to refer to the former president as a threat and lied about his positions on Friday night at a Houston rally with music star Beyoncé.
“Let us be clear: If Donald Trump wins again, he will ban abortion nationwide,” she said, even after the former president has said numerous times that he would not sign a national abortion ban if one were passed by Congress.
“Texas, what we’re experiencing here is a health care crisis, and Donald Trump is the architect of it,” the vice president falsely claimed.