NewsBusters Podcast: Blaming Trump's Hot Talk for His Foiled Assassins

September 16th, 2024 10:52 PM

The foiled second assassination attempt on Donald Trump wasn't uniformly treated as a serious security problem. We found major networks blaming Trump's hot talk on migrants and pets for his own assassins. They blamed him for not toning rhetoric down -- the flagrantly hostile networks!

Curtis Houck explains how Sunday unfolded. NBC's Lester Holt made a rare Sunday appearance: "Today’s apparent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric on the campaign trail itself. Mr. Trump, his running mate JD Vance continue to make baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio. This weekend, there were new bomb threats in that town."

On ABC, Sunday anchor (and Kamala debate coddler) Linsey Davis opened the show with the Trump news, followed with this: "Springfield, Ohio on edge. Local schools are being threatened with violence and a college shuts down activities after threats were made following the baseless rumors that Asian immigrants have been eating pets." Curtis suggested these threats could be from outside the country. After the taping, Gov. Mike DeWine announced all the threats were hoaxes and came from abroad.

Some began to lecture on the savage tone of our political conversation, and then lay that at Trump's doorstep. None of these leftist media outlets have any room to lecture about a harsh tone. They have applied the harshest tones about Trump -- connecting him to Hitler, the KKK, and totalitarian regimes. 

On MSNBC, weekend anchor Alex Witt wondered if Trump is “going to reach out to his supporters and say ‘let's take this down’?” Reporter Vaughn Hillyard tied the atmosphere of both Trump assassination attempts to the January 6 riot. Analyst Frank Figliuzzi uncorked a lecture about how America is clinging to "assault rifles" and wrongly claimed Florida is an "open carry" state. 

Let's add that Curtis discovered after we taped the podcast today that Margaret Brennan of CBS interviewed President Trump for the Super Bowl festivities in 2019. We also meant to make fun of USA Today for missing the assassination story in Monday's editions. It should be called USA Midday Yesterday.

Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.