Trump fantasizes about journalists being shot

Traditionally, a campaign’s closing speech is expected to lay out the main themes. At a rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump did just that; Once again, he fantasized about violence against those he saw as enemies.

Explaining that the outdoor podium was mostly surrounded by bulletproof glass, the former president noted a gap in that protection and added: “Someone would have to investigate fake news to catch me, and I don’t care much about that.” And by “fake news” he meant the press members covering his rally.

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The crowd screamed and applauded. Many of Trump’s rallies involve a moment of hatred towards the journalists he accuses of distorting his message, not praising him enough, reflexively favoring Kamala Harris, fact-checking his statements, noticing empty seats, and covering it, among other things. people leave their events early.

But journalists are just a few of the many “enemies within” whom Trump name-checks at his rallies and on his favorite social network, Truth Social. He suggested Mark Zuckerberg should confront “life imprisonment” If Facebook’s moderation policies punish right-wingers. He suggested using the National Guard or the army against them. “radical left lunatics” people who disrupted the election. he believes Critics of the Supreme Court “He should be put in jail.” recently to post A report published on Truth Social stated that if he wins on Tuesday, Trump will hunt down “lawyers, Political Operators, Donors, Illegal Voters, and Corrupt Election Officials” who are involved in what he calls “rampant Fraud and Fraud.” Just last week, he imagined in society About Republican critic Liz Cheney facing shooting and before was promoted a post urging him to face a “televised court-martial” for treason. NPR in general to create More than 100 examples of Trump threatening to prosecute or persecute his opponents. One of his final goals was to: this magazine.

Does this discourse concern voters? It certainly should be. What autocrats do is to persecute journalists, yet many of Trump’s supporters on the right, who claim to care deeply about free speech, appear resolutely indifferent. But his campaign has sought to correct today’s troubling statements, something his team rarely bothers to do. (The most recent notable example was when comedian Tony Hinchliffe called Puerto Rico a “garbage island” while warming up the crowd at last weekend’s Trump rally at Madison Square Garden.)

Following Lititz’s speech today, Team Trump is trying to portray his comments as nothing more than a delicate concern for the welfare of reporters. “President Trump was cleverly talking about two assassination attempts on his life,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. (Let’s take a moment to enjoy the self-deprecation it takes to write this cleverly.) He continued as follows:

word Orwellian used a lot but come on, Steven Cheung. Do you expect people to believe this nonsense? This cheerful final exclamation gives the whole statement a whiff of sarcasm, and rightly so. Trump clearly meant that if he was targeted from a nearby rooftop, he would gain at least small consolation by having an innocent camera operator at a local television station taken down first.

The rest of Trump’s speech was the usual veggie fare of cheap insults, petty complaints, and outlandish remarks. He repeated the claim he made earlier The Joe Rogan Experience– where he said he wanted to be a “whale psychiatrist” – said offshore wind farms were killing whales. He suggested he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after losing the 2020 election. He himself seemed dull at times; He regretted having to give a stump speech that the audience had probably heard “900 times”.

He targeted the Democrats he hated most: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “wasn’t a smart girl”; Harris was “too lazy”; and Adam Schiff had an “enlarged watermelon head.” He complained about “Barack Hussein Obama” and said, “I think we’re going to start having some fun with Michelle” for Obama’s wife criticizing him. Notably, among other media-related remarks, he also threatened CBS’s broadcast license because he suggested the network deceptively edited one of Harris’ answers in her interview. 60 Minutes. (The channel denies this claim.) For those who consider Trump’s threats as exaggerated rhetoric, it should also be noted that Trump has also launched a campaign. 10 billion dollars The lawsuit was filed against CBS in a district of Texas where the only federal judge is a Republican.

Read: Inside the brutal, unsettling final days of Trump’s campaign

Trump’s current mood may be attributable to his recent stagnation of momentum surveys and a collapse his luck victory in the betting markets. Accordingly, in Lititz, he has added a new name to his list of challengers: J. Ann Selzer, Iowa’s highly respected pollster and has a track record of producing surprising results on Election Day. Last night’s poll Des Moines Registration It turned out that Harris was ahead by three points in the state of Iowa, which Trump won in 2020 up to eight. Last year, when Selzer’s polling showed Trump correctly ahead in the state’s Republican primary campaign. in the name he was a “very strong” pollster who produced a “big and beautiful survey”. But in Lititz, he described Selzer as “one of my enemies” and lumped him in with the media: “The polls are just as corrupt as some of the writers out there.”

The campaign is coming to a grim end. Trump’s surrogates are going rogue: Elon Musk in question that the government’s drive for efficiency would lead to “temporary difficulties”; Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised to remove it this weekend fluoride from drinking water; and House Speaker Mike Johnson He suggested Republicans would “probably” repeal CHIPS Act, which subsidizes US semiconductor manufacturing. None of this is a winning message for Republicans. (Johnson later said he would not try to kill the bill.)

But the bigger problem is the candidate himself. The more professional elements of the campaign appear to be losing their grip on Trump, who is tired, bored and eager for revenge. Whatever happens on Tuesday, we can say with certainty that this is Trump’s darkest campaign yet.