Following the alleged second assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump over the weekend, NBC anchor Lester Holt appeared to blame Trump’s rhetoric for the apparent attempt on his life. During a broadcast, Holt asserted that the incident occurred after the Trump-Vance campaign pushed “increasingly fierce” rhetoric.
As Trump was golfing over the weekend at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, reports indicate that Secret Service noticed a rifle barrel protruding from the bushes along the perimeter of the course at approximately 400 yards away. An agent fired at the suspect who fled the scene and was later arrested.
“Today’s apparent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric on the campaign trail itself,” Holt said, referring to the concerns of Springfield, Ohio, residents related to the mass influx of Haitian migrants. “Mr. Trump, his running mate JD Vance continue to make baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio. This weekend there were new bomb threats in that town,” Holt continued.
The segment cut to reporter Maggie Vespa, who claimed, “Springfield, Ohio has been inundated by threats over the last several days, closing government buildings, schools, hospitals today, effectively closing a local university campus after administrators said someone threatened a mass shooting targeting Haitians. This in light of officials say, a false online conspiracy theory, alleging Haitian immigrants in that city are eating people’s pets.”
After Trump caught backlash for claiming the Haitian migrants have been eating people’s pets during the presidential debate, his running mate JD Vance has defended the claims, maintaining that as an Ohio Senator, he has heard the concerns personally from his constituents in the region. The American Tribune recently reported on the vice presidential candidate rebuking a hostile reporter on the matter.
He was asked, “Senator Vance. What do you say to Haitian Americans and Haitian immigrants who say spreading false claims about them put their lives at risk?” Vance responded, “Well, I don’t think that … no one has spread false claims. What they’ve said is that a small migrant community, 20,000, so it’s big for the city of Springfield, but it’s small compared to all Haitians in the United States of America, that that small migrant community has caused a lot of problems.”
Vance continued voicing several problems from the nearly 20,000 migrants who have been imported to Springfield. “It’s led to higher rates of communicable diseases. That’s a verifiable fact. It’s led to animals disappearing. Many of my constituents have said that has been happening. It’s led to higher home prices. That is a verifiable fact,” he said.
Addressing the “fact check” of the claims which suggests that city officials have denied the reports, Vance said, “The city manager said there’s no verifiable evidence. A lot of residents on the ground have said that there is. That just means the city manager, I think, isn’t fully in touch with what’s going on the ground there. I’ve heard from many of my own constituents who’ve seen these things with their own eyes, who’ve seen these abductions with their own eyes, who’ve seen geese being taken out of local parts and slaughtered in front of their eyes.”
Watch Holt below:
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