Echoing a similar prior sentiment from CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, during MSNBC’s 1 p.m. ET hour on Thursday, NBC News Terrorism Analyst Malcolm Nance argued that violence in Charlottesville, Virginia may have inspired the unfolding vehicle terrorist attack in Barcelona, Spain.
Talking to host Craig Melvin, Nance observed that “the attack in Charlottesville that we saw was just an American version of this same style of attack.” He then proclaimed: “And interestingly enough, with the intensity of information that we’ve had related to the Charlottesville incident over the last five days, it’s quite possible that may have precipitated this terrorist group’s, you know, desire to gain the limelight and carry out a similar attack.”
Earlier in that same hour on CNN, Blitzer feared, without evidence, that the attack in Spain may be “a copycat” of what occurred in Charlottesville.
Back in April, Nance infamously took to Twitter to actually nominate a Trump property in Turkey as a target for an “ISIS suicide bombing.”
Here is a full transcript of Nance’s August 17 speculation:
1:54 PM ET
CRAIG MELVIN: Malcolm Nance, NBC News Terrorism Analyst, lived in Spain for eight years, is still with me. Malcolm, London, Stockholm, Berlin, Nice, now Barcelona. It really does seem as if every few months now we are seeing an attack in Europe that is eerily similar to the previous attack. Is this going to be the case for the foreseeable future?
MALCOLM NANCE: Well, I’m afraid, Craig, that’s true. It’s going to be a tactic they’ll resort to because it is horribly, horribly simple. And you know, within that continuum of attacks, we just can’t limit that to Europe. We’ve seen these attacks occur in Israel for years. There have been over 60 of what we call vehicle-as-weapon attacks that have happened there, where the assailant just jumps into a small truck or into a personal vehicle, they drive to a bus stop or some other crowded place, and they ram into it. And then in Israel’s case, they – we call it a suicide-vehicle-as-weapon attack. They actually wait there to be killed by the police forces.
What we’re seeing here today is just another one of these types of attacks. Because like a knife attack or an arson, they are horribly simple, they are just easy to effect. And you know, for the most part, and I have to put this into context, the attack in Charlottesville that we saw was just an American version of this same style of attack. And interestingly enough, with the intensity of information that we’ve had related to the Charlottesville incident over the last five days, it’s quite possible that may have precipitated this terrorist group’s, you know, desire to gain the limelight and carry out a similar attack.
MELVIN: Malcolm Nance there on the phone for us. Malcolm, thank you.
