CNN Republican commentator Scott Jennings made it clear on Monday that — after a second assassination attempt targeting former President Donald Trump — he was giving absolutely no quarter to those blaming Republicans for ratcheting up the temperature with regard to rhetoric.
Pointing out the fact that media and Democrats had spent the majority of the last decade telling the American people that Trump was a threat, not just to their political preferences but to democracy and even human rights, Jennings said that he worried that was a bell not so easily unrung.
“I’m not interested in ‘the rhetoric on both sides’ today. Trump is the target. He’s survived two assassination attempts. He’s in danger and it’s probably too late to de-radicalize everyone who thinks the country will end if he wins,” he captioned a video clip.
WATCH:
I’m not interested in “the rhetoric on both sides” today. Trump is the target. He’s survived two assassination attempts. He’s in danger and it’s probably too late to de-radicalize everyone who thinks the country will end if he wins. My latest for @cnn pic.twitter.com/4xD2NXGWT4
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) September 16, 2024
Jennings was responding to commentary from a CNN host who claimed that the incendiary rhetoric was a “both sides” problem and that both the left and right were guilty of raising the temperature when they should be lowering it.
“The rhetoric — they have tried to kill this man twice, okay? He got shot in the ear, and this guy was setting up shop outside of a golf course to try to kill him this weekend,” Jennings shot back.
“And I know after something like this happens, it’s very fashionable to, you know, talk about rhetoric on both sides,” he continued. “Donald Trump is the target, okay? He’s the current target, and it’s happening, and it’s happened again, and I just — honestly, we have to have a conversation about elections. If you lose an election, the country’s not going to come to an end, okay?”
Jennings went on to say that what he would like to see happen on the left is for Democrats to admit that “Democracy will not end” if Trump should win a second term in the White House. “The constitution will not end, we’re not going to live in a dictatorship, there will not be a bloodbath, all the things they say that are totally fabricated — to me, it would be a good day to stop doing that.”
He concluded by noting that everyone suddenly wanted to “fix” the rhetoric in the aftermath of the second assassination attempt, but he wasn’t sure it would work.
“Folks, it’s too late. It’s too late in my opinion,” he said. “Because all the rhetoric about Donald Trump over the last several years – that he’s a threat to democracy, that the country will come to an end if he gets elected president again. You know, even over the weekend, we had people blaming him and JD Vance for a bomb threat in Springfield.”
