US: JD Vance reacted on social media to the assassination attempt targeting Trump
US: Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Donald Trump‘s running mate, replied to an attempt on the former president’s life on social media with a long message.
According to court records, the suspect, named as Ryan Wesley Routh, waited for over 12 hours outside the Republican nominee’s West Palm Beach, Florida golf club before a Secret Service agent intervened to stop the possible assault and started shooting.
The 58-year-old Routh did not discharge a weapon and left the area in an SUV before being taken into custody in the nearby county of Martin. He is accused of having a handgun owned by a convicted criminal and having a handgun whose serial number has been destroyed.
Following a gunshot incident on July 13 at a rally in Pennsylvania that resulted in an ear injury for Trump, this Sunday’s incident was the second attempt on his life in as many months and sparked new worries about violence in American politics.
In an article on X, Vance criticized the way the event was covered by the media on Sunday and hypothesized that the suspect was swayed by the statements made by Democratic friends and Vice President Kamala Harris, who will face Trump in November.
In her contest against President Trump, Harris “has stated that ‘Democracy is on the line’.” The shooter concurred and said precisely the same thing,” Vance wrote.
“His vehicle had a bumper sticker featuring Kamala Harris. He took up a lot of insane opinions on the Russia-Ukraine war and became fixated with Ukraine’s “fight for democracy.” Ryan Routh is his name, and he has contributed zero dollars to Republican charities and nineteen times to Democratic ones.”
According to the Associated Press, which cited federal campaign finance records, Routh has given ActBlue, a political action organization that backs Democratic politicians, 19 modest payments totaling $140 since 2019. Routh claimed on social media to have voted for Trump in the past, but his more recent remarks betrayed contempt for the outgoing president.
Investigators are still looking into Routh’s possible motivation.
“What do you think the Democrats and their media allies would do if a Republican donor who has donated 19 times attempted to kill a Democratic official?” Vance wrote. That is a question with an obvious solution. Surrogates for Kamala Harris have been saying stuff like “Trump has to be eliminated” for years.
Email comments have been requested from the Trump and Harris camps.
President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris have both condemned the foiled plot. Harris expressed her gratitude for the man’s safety in a post on X. America is not a place for violence.”
Look This
Yesterday, Donald J. Trump nearly lost his life. An armed gunman waited for him in the bushes. He brought a go-pro camera to record it. A secret service agent spotted the barrel of a gun through a fence and shot at the gunman. The gunman fled. He was caught. And now we slowly…
— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 16, 2024
Vance said that the media was using a “double standard” to the coverage of Sunday’s events and the bomb threats made in Springfield, Ohio. The town has garnered significant attention after Trump heightened unfounded rumors that Haitian immigrants are kidnapping and consuming local pets.
“Of course, I repeatedly condemned those threats,” Vance stated in his letter. “And reports today suggest they came from a foreign country, not—as the media suggested—a deranged Trump fan.”
Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, said on Monday that 33 threats made in the last few days were fakes and suggested that foreign actors were behind them.
Vance said, “The double standard is breathtaking,” in his piece.
They claim that I, together with Donald Trump, am directly to blame for international bomb threats. Why? because we were so bold as to quote locals on their difficulties in their community. In the interim, Allies of Harris demand that Trump be removed from office as the media reports claims that he should have been shot.
There seems to be a double standard here. However, it is totally consistent at a fundamental level.”
In closing, Vance urged readers to “reject censorship.”
“Dismiss the notion that you have any influence on the thoughts and words of others. Accept convincing your fellow citizens rather than silencing them—either by moral blackmail or the might of Big Tech,” the author stated.
“This, in my opinion, will greatly improve our public discourse. However, there’s more. Reject political violence by rejecting censorship. If you support censorship, you will unavoidably support violence in its name. It’s easy to see why. The reasoning behind censoring goes straight to the conclusion that shooting someone in the head is the only method to permanently quiet a person.”
