After yet another attack on ICE facilities and personnel Monday, a CNN panel blamed President Donald Trump’s “politically violent rhetoric,” showing how delusional some of the left-wing pundits really are.
Around 8:30 a.m. yesterday in New York City, a man who was later identified as 43-year-old Andrew Arrabaca allegedly began an attack outside 26 Federal Plaza, which houses a number of law enforcement agencies, including ICE. He reportedly set off fireworks, shot at the building with a pellet gun, and then lit what appeared to be a 5-gallon bucket of gasoline on the steps in front of the building.
Law enforcement quickly stopped the attacker, but only after two federal employees and an immigrant at the scene for a court hearing were injured in the attack. Authorities said the attacker was wearing “anti-ICE stuff” and had more incendiary devices and weapons on his person.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the incident was “deeply disturbing” and that his team would work to help the investigation.
“What occurred outside 26 Federal Plaza this morning was deeply disturbing,” Mamdani said. “I’m relieved no one was seriously injured and that a suspect is in custody.”
On CNN’s NewsNight show, stand-in host Sara Sidner asked a panel about the causes of the attack. Former Bill Clinton adviser Keith Boykin responded that, “Donald Trump is responsible for some of the worst, most incendiary, most politically violent rhetoric in our country.”
“If you believe that a government agency is doing something wrong, do you use your vote, do you use your words, or do you resort to violence? In one very clear example, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, implicitly encouraged people to resort to violence,” Boykin said, referencing the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
“Political violence is wrong, whether it’s Left or Right. The problem is, I don’t know any president on the Democratic side in my lifetime who’s ever encouraged political violence,” he said, saying that other Republican presidents are in the same camp.
Boykin’s response to this attack completely misses the point. While the commentator is arguing that Trump is evil because he “implicitly encouraged people to resort to violence,” he completely ignores all of the literal calls for violence on the Left.
It’s completely hypocritical to say that Trump’s “implicitly” violent rhetoric leads to violent attacks across the country, especially when compared to other Democratic figures’ overtly violent rhetoric. For instance, Mamdani said in an interview on Friday with the New York Times that, “ICE is an agency that has terrorized Americans across this country, and others that live in this country.”
It is not possible to say that Mamdani’s words here do not have the possibility of leading to violence. Modern Americans, including the alleged ICE attacker Andrew Arrabaca, live in the shadow of the war on terrorism started by President George W. Bush. If ICE’s law enforcement is “terrorism,” as Mamdani says, then the only obvious response would be to fight back. Throwing around the word “terrorism” inevitably leads to cold, calculated attacks on American law enforcement.
Boykin’s only rebuttal to the truth that left-wing agitators frequently call for violence is that Trump is the worst offender when it comes to violent rhetoric. Refocusing the debate away from the attack at hand excuses other attackers in the future. Attacks by right-wing extremists are inexcusable when they happen, but the recent rise in left-wing anti-government violence is not something to be pushed aside either — especially if it targets government officials, political commentators, or regular people for simply holding a different opinion.
CNN host Sara Sidner, speaking to commentator Scott Jennings, asked, “Is it possible that it’s the actions of ICE that have people talking like this, not just getting messaging from the Democrats?”
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The answer to Sidner is yes, the actions of law enforcement personnel can lead people to speak against and protest the wrongful deaths of individuals they have harmed. But enforcing the law is never a clean-cut job; it rarely looks pretty, and enforcing the law can never justly be met with violence.
Left-wingers just seem to have an idea that police are ineffective if they do any harm in the course of their duty. Conservatives, on the other hand, see law enforcement as ineffective when they allow for more harm to happen by standing around and doing nothing. ICE is not evil because it can make mistakes; it’s evil if it lets criminal immigrants into the country to hurt U.S. citizens.