Trump shooting: Republicans and Democrats in savage blame game as bitter election war fires up
Political foes haven’t held back as the blame game over Trump’s assassination attempt fires up an already bitter election campaign.
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The assassination attempt on Donald Trump has sparked a ferocious blame game between Republicans and Democrats that will up-end what was already a bitter election campaign.
While US President Joe Biden quickly condemned the “sick” shooting, Trump’s allies rushed to criticise him and his party for stirring up anger about the controversial Republican.
Ohio senator JD Vance – one of the leading contenders to be named as Trump’s vice presidential candidate on Tuesday at the party’s convention – led the charge, saying the attack was “not just some isolated incident”.
“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” he said.
“That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Last week, as Mr Biden stared down calls to drop out of the election race after his disastrous debate performance against Trump, he told donors: “We’re done talking about the debate – it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”
Georgia congressman Mike Collins shared that quote on social media in the wake of the shooting in a post that said: “Joe Biden sent the orders.”
His colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene also blamed Democrats and the media “for every drop of blood spilled today” because they had “demonised him and his supporters”.
The President, who was at a church service in Delaware when the incident unfolded, told reporters that there was “no place in America for this kind of violence”.
“It’s sick. It’s sick. That’s one of the reasons why we have to unite this country. You cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this,” he said.
He said he was praying for his opponent, with the pair later speaking over the phone.
But Trump’s former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney also hit out at the Democrats, saying: “Call someone Hitler enough and eventually some nut job is going to believe you.”
“Now a former president has been shot and someone else is apparently dead. Because of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” he said.
“There’s going to be a lot of Democrats scrubbing their social media tonight.”
Republican senator Mike Lee said that in order to “take the political temperature down”, the four criminal cases against Trump needed to be dropped to “help heal wounds and allow all Americans to take a deep breath and reflect on how we got here”.
Trump is due to be sentenced in September after he was found guilty in the Manhattan Criminal Court of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star before the 2016 presidential election.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges against him, said: “Political violence in any form is abhorrent and unacceptable … My thoughts and prayers are with former president Trump and his family.”
Trump also faces charges over his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat – which culminated in the deadly January 6 riot at the US Capitol – and his mishandling of classified files after leaving the White House.
Former Democratic president Barack Obama condemned the violence, saying the United States needed to “use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics”.
Bill and Hillary Clinton – the former president and the Democratic candidate against Trump in 2016 – also said that “violence has no place in America” and that the deadly incident had left them “heartbroken”.
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