Former CNN political analyst Chris Cilizza on Monday criticized people who are downplaying the assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump.
Trump faced a second assassination attempt on Sunday but experienced no injury this time as a Secret Service agent fired shots at a man with a semi-automatic rifle while the former president was golfing at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. Cillizza, on his YouTube channel, said people who minimize the gravity of the attempts on Trump’s life undermine “our democracy” and must stop.
“I think it is so stupid and counterproductive to spend time trying to downplay the fact that … two times there have been people trying to kill him over the last 90 days. We are not a country in which political violence can be condoned. And just because Donald Trump helped incite Jan. 6 does not make two wrongs equal a right, right?” Cillizza said. “We need to be better than that — not the same or worse. It is a bad thing that twice in 90 days the nominee of one of the two major parties was the victim or the focus of an attempted assassination, period.”
Trump was shot in his right ear during a July 13 assassination attempt during his rally in Butler Township, Pennsylvania, that left former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore dead. Some claimed following the assassination attempt that Trump got struck by glass fragments rather than a bullet, but the FBI clarified in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation that it was a bullet that hit the former president.
Cillizza said people questioning whether Trump was shot “are bringing ourselves down, way down, to a place that we don’t want to be as a nation.”
“Political violence is wrong, period, whether it’s against Donald Trump or anyone else. And yes, the attempt at political violence, even if this guy on Sunday didn’t fire any shots is wrong, period,” he added. “I just think there is so much as it comes to Donald Trump that is legitimate for criticism, for dislike and for a vote against that when you spend your time mired in these waters, you are doing a disservice, not just to yourself but to who we are as a people and to our democracy. So just stop doing it. Leave it be … You beat him at the ballot box, you don’t beat him by violence or the threat of violence.”
The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, who was arrested Sunday in connection with the second assassination attempt, appears to have previously donated to Democrats while living in Hawaii, according to federal campaign finance records.
Jason Cohen | The Daily Caller
