Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) accused Vice President Kamala Harris of paving the way for more political violence with her campaign rhetoric on Friday.
The Republican leaders said in a joint statement that the Democrat’s branding of former President Donald Trump as a “fascist” has invited more assassination attempts and run counter to her prior condemnation of such violence.
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“These words have proven hollow. In the weeks since that second sobering reminder, the Democratic nominee for president of the United States has only fanned the flames beneath a boiling cauldron of political animus,” McConnell and Johnson said. “Her most recent and most reckless invocations of the darkest evil of the 20th Century seem to dare it to boil over. The vice president’s words more closely resemble those of President Trump’s second would-be assassin than her own earlier appeal to civility.”
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Harris’s “fascist” rhetoric comes in the wake of Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Kelly, labeling his former boss as such, an opportunity that the vice president has used to lean further into her warnings that democracy is on the line if the former president wins.
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McConnell and Johnson noted that in the aftermath of the two failed assassination attempts on Trump, Harris said that “we all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence.” They also said they’ve been briefed about “ongoing and persistent threats” to Trump and that they feel her rhetoric is “escalating the threat environment.”
“Labeling a political opponent as a ‘fascist’ risks inviting yet another would-be assassin to try robbing voters of their choice before Election Day,” McConnell and Johnson said. “Vice President Harris may want the American people to entrust her with the sacred duty of executive authority. But first, she must abandon the base and irresponsible rhetoric that endangers both American lives and institutions.”