Trump escalates attacks on McConnell with incendiary threat in racist message
Former president Donald Trump is facing blowback for an inflammatory online message attacking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that many viewed as a threat.
“He has a DEATH WISH,” Trump posted late Friday on his Truth Social platform, criticizing McConnell for agreeing to a deal to fund the government through December. He also disparaged McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, who served as Trump’s transportation secretary and was born in Taiwan, in racist terms, calling her “his China loving wife, Coco Chow!”
The post marked a further escalation in an increasingly strained relationship between the two Republican leaders. Trump has repeatedly impugned McConnell’s negotiating positions and called on GOP senators to replace him as their leader. They often had a tense working relationship during Trump’s presidency and fell out in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Trump refused to concede and tried to overturn the results, and the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. [Continue reading…]
In Bangor, Maine, an unknown visitor smashed a storm window at Senator Susan Collins’s home.
In Seattle, a man who had sent an angry email to Representative Pramila Jayapal repeatedly showed up outside the lawmaker’s house, armed with a semiautomatic handgun and shouting threats and profanities.
In Queens, a man who had traveled across the country waited in a cafe across the street from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office to confront her, part of a near-constant stream of threats and harassment that has prompted the congresswoman to switch her sleeping location at times and seek protection from a 24-hour security detail.
Members of Congress in both parties are experiencing a surge in threats and confrontations as a rise in violent political speech has increasingly crossed over into the realm of in-person intimidation and physical altercation. In the months since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which brought lawmakers and the vice president within feet of rioters threatening their lives, Republicans and Democrats have faced stalking, armed visits to their homes, vandalism and assaults.
It is part of a chilling trend that many fear is only intensifying as lawmakers scatter to campaign and meet with voters around the country ahead of next month’s midterm congressional elections. [Continue reading…]