As crisis conditions grip Minneapolis in the wake of the Renee Good shooting, Trump administration officials have repeatedly suggested that the left needs to lower the rhetorical volume.
Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, for example, insisted this week that “rhetoric does cause violence.” Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, similarly condemned “heated rhetoric” shortly after White House border czar Tom Homan declared, “There will be more bloodshed unless we decrease the hateful rhetoric.”
There was a degree of irony to the circumstances. After all, the White House has spent the last week condemning Good as a “deranged lunatic” and a “terrorist,” both characterizations that suggest it has no problem with “heated rhetoric.”
Similarly, given the widespread violence and unrest in Minneapolis, singling out word choice as the principal problem is hard to take seriously.
And yet here was White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stressing a related point at Thursday’s briefing.
“The Democrat [sic] Party has demeaned [ICE agents],” she said. “They’ve even referred to them as Nazis and as the Gestapo, and that is absolutely leading to the violence we’re seeing in the streets.”
The president’s chief spokesperson went on to show reporters photographs of people using the f-word and giving the middle finger.
What Leavitt didn’t mention was that just 48 hours earlier, Donald Trump also used f-word and pointed his middle finger at someone who dared to criticize him.
And while the White House press secretary seemed appalled that people would equate federal agents with the Gestapo, Leavitt might not be aware that Trump, in 2022 and 2023, also referred to federal agents as the “Gestapo” — 20 times.
If Leavitt is correct and such comparisons “absolutely” lead to violence, why did her boss make the comparison so frequently? To date, she hasn’t said. The broader problem comes up all the time. Vice President JD Vance appeared on Fox News after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was killed to comment about incendiary rhetoric: “What is it that you want them to do when you call them ‘fascist’?” It might have seemed like a reasonable point, except Trump has called his political opponents “fascists” many times. Similarly, House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters, “You can’t call the other side ‘fascists’ and ‘enemies of the state’ and not understand that there are some deranged people in our society who will take that as cues to act.” But not only has Trump repeatedly called Democratic leaders “fascists,” he’s also condemned his perceived political foes as “enemies of the people,” “the enemy within,” “threats to democracy” and “evil.” The underlying point is simple: The White House and its Republican allies believe everyone would be better off if the left didn’t sound so much like Trump.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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