MSNBC blames Trump for assassination attempt, calls for his campaign to 'tone down the violence' after would-be gunman repeated Democrat claim 'democracy is on the ballot'

Following a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump Sunday as he was playing a round at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, MSNBC questioned whether Trump's campaign would call for "toning down the violence," with an analyst stating that a moment of unity would be "fleeting." The suspect is a Democrat who donated to ActBlue and attempted to register foreign fighters to take up arms for Ukraine.

MSNBC host Alex Witt asked whether Trump’s campaign would begin calling for Trump supporters to start "toning down the violence," adding, "Do you expect there to be calls from within the Trump campaign to do that? Because he’s gonna reach out to his supporters and say let’s take this down. We do not know, again, the source of any gunshots or gunshots. We do not know who is responsible for this. The whole thing has yet to be 100% confirmed from start to finish how this all played out."

 

"But do you expect to hear anything from the Trump campaign about toning down the rhetoric? Toning down the violence? Or would that be atypical of the former president," Witt continued.

MSNBC political analyst Elise Jordan replied, "Well, Alex, remember back to the assassination attempt from President Trump’s life and how there was talk of a new tone and then the Republican convention was, by Trumpian standards, muted, and it did seem like he was trying to take it down a few notches. But then by the end of the convention speech, we were back to where we started." 

"I don’t know how long this moment of unity for the country where we come together and we say ‘I don’t want any political opposition to be under threat of violence. Any threat of violence we don’t want,’" Jordan added. "I would love for us to have a unity-type moment, but I think it is probably going to be fleeting, as we have seen in the past."

Jordan also questioned whether those on both sides of the political aisle would work to "take the temperature down," saying, "it is no longer politics. It has gotten bigger than that, the calls for violence, the violent rhetoric and look at what happens. This heated rhetoric can only go so far before, unfortunately, it has led to violence on both sides of the aisle. So I think it is something that Democrats and Republicans have to be very cognizant about. What can we all do to take the temperature down?"

As Trump was playing golf in Florida on Sunday, shots rang out on the golf course. The alleged suspect, Ryan Wesley Roth, was able to get onto the golf course and was around 300 to 500 yards away from Trump. USSS agents saw him near the edge of the golf course and then engaged him with around four to five shots. The suspect took off in an SUV and was arrested in the neighboring county after police shut down the highway and scanned for his license plate, which was reported by a person who saw him drive off.

In one social media post leading up to the attempt, Routh wrote, "DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose," echoing similar sentiments from Demcoratic lawmakers and pundits.