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Republican lawmakers and right-wing personalities are blaming President Joe Biden for the assassination attempt against his rival Donald Trump, alleging sinister motives from a sitting president and inflaming tensions against urgent calls for calm.
More than two dozen congressional Republicans are blaming the shooting on Biden, Democratic officials and the press.
Far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene baselessly alleged that “Democrats wanted this to happen” and have “wanted Trump gone for years and they’re prepared to do anything to make that happen.”
Greene, a Republican from Georgia, also accused Democratic lawmakers of trying to strip Trump of his Secret Service protection. That proposed legislation would only remove his detail if he is imprisoned for his criminal convictions.
“The Democrat party is flat out evil, and yesterday they tried to murder President Trump,” she wrote on X.
On her congressional X account, she wrote: “There are too many things that do not make sense. I don’t care what anyone says about me saying this, because everyone knows we are all thinking it. Fine call me a conspiracy theorist. I don’t give a damn. The insane left have been fantasizing out loud about killing Trump for years. Prove me wrong.”
Within hours of Saturday’s shooting, Republican congressman Mike Collins claimed without evidence that Biden “sent the orders” to kill Trump.
He called on the district attorney in Bulter County, Pennsylvania, to “immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination.”
Trump himself has resisted laying the blame, noting that “nothing is known” yet about the shooter or his motive. “In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win,” he wrote on Saturday.
Biden and administration officials have roundly condemned acts of political violence, even before the attack in Pennsylvania. Yet prominent Trump allies have accused Biden and Democratic officials of calling for violence with their descriptions of the GOP’s agenda.
Their statements follow years of ignored warnings that Trump’s rhetoric and similar statements from his allies and supporters are fueling violent threats across the country.
New York Police Department officials recently revealed dozens of threats, including bomb threats, towards court officials and prosecutors in Manhattan after Trump railed against them.
Trump’s statements have been invoked by defendants in dozens of criminal cases involving allegations of violence, including hundreds of cases surrounding the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
The Secret Service also pushed back on false claims that Trump’s campaign was denied additional protection.
“There’s an untrue assertion that a member of the former President’s team requested additional security resources and that those were rebuffed,” spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said hours after the shooting.
“This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protective resources and technology and capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo,” he said.
Bipartisan groups in Congress are demanding answers from the apparent lapse in law enforcement that allowed the gunman to take a position on a rooftop without anyone stopping him.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers also are introducing a measure to enhance Secret Service protection for Trump and Biden, as well as grant it to independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Law enforcement officials have not disclosed a motive for the attack. The gunman was a 20-year-old registered Republican who fired an AR-15-style rifle purchased by his father.
Florida Senator Rick Scott, who wants to be the Senate’s next Republican leader, called the attack an “assassination attempt by a madman inspired by the rhetoric of the radical left.”
“For weeks Democrat leaders have been fueling ludicrous hysteria that Donald Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a statement.
Scalise was wounded in a shooting at a congressional baseball game in 2017 by a 66-year-old left-wing activist with a history of domestic violence allegations. The FBI later described the gunman as a “terrorist” with a “personalized violent ideology.”
“Clearly we’ve seen far-left lunatics act on violent rhetoric in the past,” Scalise added. “This incendiary rhetoric must stop.”
Two candidates for Trump’s running mate have also blamed Democrats for the attack.
Ohio Senator JD Vance said Democratic “rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott claimed that for years “Democrats and their allies in the media recklessly stoked fears, calling President Trump and other conservatives threats to democracy.”
“Their inflammatory rhetoric puts lives at risk,” he said.
Republicans have pointed to campaign remarks from Biden one day earlier in which he described putting Trump in the “bullseye.”
In his remarks, Biden was telling supporters to not be distracted by Democratic infighting over his candidacy, and to shift their focus to the dangers of a Trump presidency. “We’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye,” Biden said.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose husband survived a blow to the head from a conspiracy theorist who broke into the family’s home in 2022, said that “as one whose family has been the victim of political violence, I know firsthand that political violence of any kind has no place in our society.”
Trump mocked that attack on Paul Pelosi, and his oldest son Donald Trump Jr amplified false claims that he brought the attack on himself during a sexual encounter with the man who nearly killed him.
Former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who experienced a severe brain injury after surviving an assassination attempt in 2011, urged Americans to denounce acts of political violence.
“Political violence is terrifying. I know,” she said. “Political violence is un-American and is never acceptable — never.”
