Spin Cycle: It’s All About The Rhetoric And The Rhetoric Is All About Trump

For those who don’t spend their Sunday mornings glued to the television — and their Sunday afternoons attempting to dig through a week’s worth of network and cable news media spin — The Daily Wire has compiled a short summary of what you may have missed.

The spin on Sunday, as expected, was focused on Saturday’s assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — and what may have led to such a heated political climate. To the surprise of exactly no one, a majority tied the horrific violent attack on Trump to the extreme political rhetoric that has become commonplace — and they placed the blame for that rhetoric squarely on Trump’s shoulders.

On ABC News’ “This Week,” George Stephanopoulos and Martha Raddatz recapped the situation — and while Raddatz left viewers to draw their own conclusions about what had provoked the would-be assassin to violence, Stephanopoulos left nothing to chance and pointed directly to Trump and his supporters, even invoking January 6th as a product of the same root problem.

WATCH:

Former Pres. Trump is safe following an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.@MarthaRaddatz has more on the reactions to the violence and the possibility of conspiracy theories amid a heightened threat environment. https://t.co/5zPeUkxI3N pic.twitter.com/zYT39wI5yh

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) July 14, 2024

“Martha, I know you’ve traveled around the country talking to voters in our deeply divided nation,” the former Democrat operative began. “In some ways this is a horrific symptom of the underlying division in this country.”

“It certainly is, George, and I’m certain that probably will continue,” Raddatz replied. “We saw President Trump raise his right hand as Jon [Karl] just described and we’ve seen those pictures, but we could all also see him say what I believe was, ‘fight, fight,’ that was his first instinct. And this is a country divided, this is a country — we saw the horrific violence yesterday, and we’ve seen it in places and we’ve also seen this morning — we’ve heard President Trump say that he wants the country to come together, to be united, but others are directly pointing the finger at President Biden with of course no evidence that he incited this or had anything to do with this assassination attempt.”

Raddatz went on to point out that no one has yet shed any light on the shooter’s motive, and she went on to chastise those who suggested the rhetoric coming from President Joe Biden’s campaign — namely that Trump is an existential threat to democracy — might have anything to do with the nation’s rising political temperature.

“George, we have to point out, no matter who the shooter — what the shooter’s motives were, no matter who the shooter is, you are going to hear conspiracy theories going forward,” she said.

“No question about that,” Stephanopoulos agreed, adding, “But President Trump and his supporters have contributed to this violent rhetoric as well.”

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) called for the rhetoric to be toned down during an appearance on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” telling anchor Kristen Welker that he wanted to see people getting off their phones and social media and taking “time to reflect on who we are as a nation and who we want to be.”

WATCH:

WATCH: Sen. @ChrisCoons (D-Del.) recounts the acts of political violence he’s seen — and calls for reducing the rhetoric.

“We went through … political violence in the late ’60s. I was a high-school senior when there was an assassination attempt at President Reagan’s life.” pic.twitter.com/y667DvidJW

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) July 14, 2024

But according to Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), the leadership in the Democratic Party has not taken any steps to encourage members to dial back that rhetoric — rhetoric repeated by not only President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and their media surrogates but by other prominent members of the party as well — labeling Trump as everything from fascist or Nazi to an “existential threat” to democracy and the American way of life.

Crow joined anchor Margaret Brennan on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” where he called for his colleagues to tone down the verbal attacks, lest more of them escalate to physical violence.

WATCH:

We are “on that precipice” of violence spiraling “out of control,” says Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) in the wake of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

In a message to his colleagues, Crow says: “Let’s stop creating political moments and let’s start creating political… pic.twitter.com/aa05rHVfEP

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) July 14, 2024

“I think right now, on the heels of an attempted — what appears to be an attempted assassination attempt by all the evidence that we’re seeing right now, we all need to take a step back, we all need to take a breather,” Crow explained. “We are on that precipice. So leadership requires that we all step back. And we say enough is enough. We can’t do this.”

“And this is my call to action, both to the American people, and to my colleagues, to the American people, right now: pick up the phone, walk out your door, go talk to your neighbor, go talk to your colleague, call your friends, who don’t agree with you and tell them, we can disagree. You’re not my enemy. You’re not evil. But this is our time to come together and to reach out to each other and to my colleagues,” he added. “Let’s stop creating political moments. And let’s start creating political change. That is what we need now.”

When Brennan asked directly whether or not Democratic Party leadership had cautioned members to tone down the rhetoric with regard to Trump, he responded: “They have not.”