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 later told reporters: “We all must speak out about any form of political violence.” She made no indication of plans to alter her language to voters in the final days of her campaign.
“No one should be subjected to violence, much less political violence,” Harris continued. “But the American people deserve to be presented with facts and the truth. And the facts and the truth is that some of the people closest to Donald Trump when he was president, generals, including most recently John Kelly, a four-star Marine general, have been very clear about the danger and the threat that Donald Trump poses to America and the fact that he is unfit to serve.”
Harris’s “fascist” rhetoric comes in the wake of Trump’s former chief of staff, John 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.”
