O, Donie, where art thou?! That was the question worth asking Monday night when CNN’s The Lead had a new report about “Hate in America” in light of the deadly anti-Semitic attack in Colorado and deadly shootings of Minnesota state Democrats and host Jake Tapper brought out correspondent Tom Foreman instead of CNN’s supposed extremism expert Donie O’Sullivan.
Back in April, O’Sullivan infamously flirted with Taylor Lorenz on a park bench as part of an insane special with its thesis claiming there’s no real “extremism” on the left. Foreman said the motivations of those who commit political violence are often “murky,” but at least he didn’t make a fool of himself.
“A frightening trend, violence has become more and more common as a tool for extremists in the United States, seemingly trying to make some sort of political point, however sick, twisted or misguided. Just last month, as you’ll recall, two Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed here in the nation’s capital outside the Jewish Museum by a man yelling, free Palestine,” Tapper began, adding Foreman took “a look...at the disturbing rise of political violence or terrorism in America.”
Foreman led off with recent anti-Semitic attacks in Colorado and Washington D.C. and the nut who killed a Minnesota state representative, her husband, and dog (and left another and their spouse hurt) (click “expand”):
FOREMAN: Authorities say an 82-year-old woman has died after that attack on pro-Israel demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado by a man reportedly yelling, free Palestine, raising the grim toll of political violence. In recent weeks, two lawmakers and their spouses were shot in Minnesota, one couple killed.
FBI MINNEAPOLIS FIELD OFFICE’s ALVIN WINSTON: This was a targeted attack against individuals who answered the call to public service.
FOREMAN: A man in Memphis was charged after allegedly trying to kidnap that city’s mayor. And in Washington, D.C. —
ELIAS RODRIGUEZ: Free, free Palestine.
FOREMAN: — police say, this man gunned down this young couple outside a Jewish museum. Sarah Milgrim said she saw Nazi graffiti on her Kansas high school years back, sparking early fears.
SARAH MILGRIM [on 02/24/17]: You know, I worry about going to my synagogue and now I have to worry about safety at school and that shouldn’t be a thing.
Foreman made one major change from O’Sullivan’s tomfoolery with this admission: “Analysts note opposition anger flared sharply in 2017 ahead of the first inauguration of Donald Trump.”
Sure, he then brought up January 6, 2021, but it was bookended by mentions of the 2024 assassination attempts against Trump. Still, no mentions of the Alexandria ballfield shooting in 2017 by a Rachel Maddow and Bernie Sanders fan or the 2012 attack on the Family Research Council.
University of Chicago professor Robert Pape then weighed in: “You have to go back 50 years to the 1960s to find anything like these violent protests and political assassinations. This is really quite disturbing.”
Foreman built on Pape’s soundbite with threats filed by the U.S. Capitol Police having skyrocketed from nearly 4,000 in 2017 to nearly 9,500 last year.
Foreman then went off the reservation with the claim that “[t]he reasons for such violence are often murky” and lamented that, “[w]hen trouble broke out around protest in Los Angeles, some on the left blamed it on Trump’s harsh anti-immigrant tactics while some on the right insisted” Antifa and other leftists were behind it.
“[S]till others, including the governor of Pennsylvania whose home was firebombed, are taking a broader view,” he continued.
Back live with Tapper, Foreman tried to blame Donald Trump’s “language” while at the same time claiming there’s no firm reason for what’s been happening:
Of course, plenty of critics are looking at the language of Donald Trump from his first term, his second term, and his campaign, that his language alone speaks an awful lot of enemies and people who have to be fought and people who are traitorous, in his mind, they wonder if that’s a catalyst for all of this happening. Whatever the cause, Jake, when you try to look back at the number of political violent incidents we have had in the past eight or ten years, it really is unlike anything that I have seen in my career, and I’ve been doing this for a lot of decades right now. And the question is, how do we get to an end of it when a lot of people say this is about a culture clash where people are giving up on talking to each other and saying, I will prove it with violence.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from June 30, click here.
