Republicans, in wake of Trump shooting, seek to pin political violence trend on Democrats

Republicans, in wake of Trump shooting, seek to pin political violence trend on Democrats
Republicans are saying that President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders laid the groundwork for Saturday’s shooting by casting Trump as an autocrat who poses a grave threat to democracy. (Getty Images/AFP )
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Updated 15 July 2024
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Republicans, in wake of Trump shooting, seek to pin political violence trend on Democrats

Republicans, in wake of Trump shooting, seek to pin political violence trend on Democrats
  • “For weeks Democrat leaders have been fueling ludicrous hysteria that Donald Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America,” Republican Rep. Steve Scalize wrote on X
  • A researcher on political violence said it's Trump's right-wing supporters who had been deploying violent language, including threats aimed at election workers, judges and other officials
  • Trump previously had not ruled out the possibility of political violence if he loses November’s election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he told TIME magazine in April

WASHINGTON: Within hours of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, many of his supporters began laying blame on Democrats, seeking to flip the script on who has stoked America’s heated political rhetoric as cases of political violence reach historic heights.
From establishment Republicans to far-right conspiracy theorists, a consistent message emerged that President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders laid the groundwork for Saturday’s shooting by casting Trump as an autocrat who poses a grave threat to democracy.
A Reuters analysis of more than 200 incidents of politically motivated violence between 2021 and 2023, however, presented a different picture: In those years, fatal political violence more often emanated from the American right than from the left.
The US is embroiled in the most sustained spate of political violence since a decade of upheaval that began in the late 1960s, Reuters found in that report published last year. That violence has come from across the ideological spectrum, and includes extensive attacks on property during left-wing political demonstrations. But attacks on people — from beatings to killings — were perpetrated mostly by suspects acting in service of right-wing political beliefs and ideology.
Almost immediately after Saturday’s attack, right-wing websites were brimming with assertions that left-wing rhetoric motivated Trump’s assailant. Many commentators blamed the shooting on the Biden White House or pushed unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, including a claim that a shadowy “deep state” cabal within the government orchestrated it.
“Do not think this is going to be the last attempt to kill Trump. The Deep State really has no other choice now,” said a user on the pro-Trump website Patriots.Win. “It’s going to take borderline martial law to set the country right,” wrote another. One user called for a federal government purge. “It’s us or them.”
Trump’s Republican backers pointed specifically to a comment Biden made on July 8 as the president discussed his dismal debate performance in a meeting with donors.
“I have one job and that’s to beat Donald Trump,” Biden said, according to a transcript of the call that Biden’s campaign forwarded to reporters. “We’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye. He’s gotten away with doing nothing for the last 10 days except ride around in his golf cart.”
Some Republican officeholders seized on the “bullseye” comment as an example of Biden invoking violent imagery in describing November’s presidential election and criticized Biden and other Democrats for casting the former president as a threat to Democracy and to the nation.
“For weeks Democrat leaders have been fueling ludicrous hysteria that Donald Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America,” US Representative Steve Scalize, a Louisiana Republican, wrote on X. “Clearly we’ve seen far left lunatics act on violent rhetoric in the past. This incendiary rhetoric must stop.”
Scalize himself was the victim of violence seven years ago, wounded by a left-wing gunman who opened fire during a practice of the congressional Republican baseball team.
Other Republican politicians added to the drumbeat.
“Joe Biden sent the orders,” US Representative Mike Collins, a Republican from Georgia, posted on X on Saturday. There is no evidence for that claim. “The Republican District Attorney in Butler County, PA, should immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination.”

“False equivalence”
Kurt Braddock, an assistant professor of public communication at American University who researches political violence, said Biden’s criticisms of Trump as a threat to the nation aren’t the same as the violent language deployed by right-wing supporters of Trump. “It’s a little bit of a false equivalence,” Braddock said.
Trump supporters have led an increase in threats and harassing communications aimed at election workers, judges and other officials.
After Trump lost the 2020 election, Reuters documented hundreds of threats to local election officials by Trump supporters enraged by his false claims that the election was rigged. A Reuters investigation published in May found thatviolent threats against judgeshandling Trump’s various criminal and civil trials spiked after the former president criticized those judges in speeches or social-media posts.
Before the shooting, Trump had not ruled out the possibility of political violence if he loses November’s election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he said when asked by TIME magazine in April if he expected violence after the 2024 election. He’s also refused to unconditionally accept the results of the upcoming election and warned of a “bloodbath” if he loses.
A Reuters review of dozens of Trump’s campaign speeches – particularly those from 2020 and 2024 – found that violence was a recurring theme. He has exhorted rallygoers “to take back our country,” repeatedly praised the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters and compared himself to famed mobster Al Capone. While president, he encouraged police to be rough with people they were arresting and threatened to use the US military to quell protests.
Biden, who has repeatedly condemned political violence, offered another denunciation immediately after the attack on Trump.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence or any violence for that matter. An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for ... as a nation — everything,” Biden said in a televised address. “We’ll debate and we’ll disagree. That’s not going to change. But we’re not going to lose sight of who we are as Americans.”
Trump struck a defiant tone initially. In the moments after the shooting at his rally in Pennsylvania, he pumped his fist at the crowd and shouted, “Fight! Fight!” On Sunday, however, he called for national unity.
“In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social network.
That message was reinforced by his campaign in memo to staff urging calm. “It is our fervent hope that this horrendous act will bring our team, and indeed the nation, together in unity and we must renew our commitment to safety and peace for our country,” said the internal campaign memo, seen by Reuters.
Some pro-Trump commentators predicted more violence ahead. “They will stop at nothing unless America stands up to them,” said a commentator on Rumble, a video-sharing site that attracts right-wing users, referring to Democrats. “Violence is going to happen. Here is the civil war.”
A senior member of the Proud Boys, the violent all-male extremist group that led the pro-Trump storming of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, said the group would show up at the Republican National Convention, which kicks off in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Monday. After the shooting of Trump, “you’ll see us at more events,” the Proud Boy told Reuters. “It’s going to be more active. It’s that simple.”
Megan McBride, an expert in domestic violent extremism, said US leaders have a brief window to cool partisan hatred before a retaliatory cycle emerges. Research shows that support for political violence increases when people believe the other side supports it, said McBride, a senior research scientist with the Institute for Public Research at CNA, a nonprofit that studies security issues.
“There’s nothing inevitable about a progression from the threat of violence to violence itself,” she said. “That’s a really fantastic opportunity for the country to kind of bring the temperature down a little bit.”
The shooter’s politics and motive remain unclear. The suspect, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed at the scene by Secret Service agents. Crooks was a registered Republican who would have been eligible to cast his first presidential vote in the Nov. 5 election. His father, Matthew Crooks, 53, told CNN he was trying to learn what happened and would wait until he had talked to law enforcement before speaking about his son.

Republican Rep. Mike Kelly, who represents the area where the shooting occurred, attended with his wife and grandchildren and was just behind Trump when he was wounded. Kelly said he was “in a state of bewilderment of how and what has happened to the United States of America.”
“I just wish people — tone it down,” he said. “Quit trying to find, to blame somebody. The blame lies somewhere in the psyche of America.”

(With AP)

 


Kyiv mayor says drones and missiles attack city, triggering fires

Kyiv mayor says drones and missiles attack city, triggering fires
Updated 24 May 2025
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Kyiv mayor says drones and missiles attack city, triggering fires

Kyiv mayor says drones and missiles attack city, triggering fires
  • Officials said anti-aircraft units were in action

Ukraine’s capital Kyiv was coming under a combined drone and missile attack early on Saturday, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said.
Timur Tkachenko, head of the capital’s military administration, said two fires had broken out in the city’s Sviatoshinskyi district. Drone fragments had hit the ground there and in three other districts.
Officials said anti-aircraft units were in action.
Reuters witnesses reported waves of drones flying over the city, which had been jolted by a series of explosions. 


White House National Security Council hit by more firings, sources say

White House National Security Council hit by more firings, sources say
Updated 24 May 2025
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White House National Security Council hit by more firings, sources say

White House National Security Council hit by more firings, sources say
  • The restructuring of the NSC is expected to grant more authority to the State Department, the Defense Department and other agencies

WASHINGTON: A large restructuring of the White House National Security Council got under way on Friday as President Donald Trump moved to reduce the size and scope of the once-powerful agency, five sources briefed on the matter said.
Staff dealing with a variety of major geopolitical issues were sent termination notices on Friday, said the sources, who requested anonymity as they were not permitted to speak to the media.
The move comes just weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio took over from Mike Waltz as national security adviser. The NSC declined to comment.
The restructuring of the NSC is expected to grant more authority to the State Department, the Defense Department and other agencies, the sources said. The aim is to reduce the size of the NSC to just a few dozen people.
The NSC is the main body used by presidents to coordinate national security strategy. Its staff often make key decisions regarding America’s approach to the world’s most volatile conflicts and play a key role in keeping America safe.
The firings will reduce the NSC’s already pared-down staff. The body had more than 300 staffers under Democratic President Joe Biden, but even before the recent firings under Trump was less than half the size of Biden’s NSC.
The NSC staffers who are cut from the agency will be moved to other positions in government, two of the sources told Reuters.


Russia to present peace accord draft after prisoner exchange, Lavrov says

Russia to present peace accord draft after prisoner exchange, Lavrov says
Updated 24 May 2025
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Russia to present peace accord draft after prisoner exchange, Lavrov says

Russia to present peace accord draft after prisoner exchange, Lavrov says
  • Lavrov says Europe encourages Ukrainian drone attacks, seeks to disrupt peace talks
  • Ukraine accuses Moscow of mass drone attacks, says leaders’ meeting should include Trump

MOSCOW: Russia will be ready to hand Ukraine a draft document outlining conditions for a long-term peace accord once a prisoner exchange now under way is completed, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.
Lavrov, in statements on his ministry’s website, said Russia was committed to working out a peaceful settlement in the more than three-year-old war pitting Moscow against Kyiv.
He also accused Ukraine of launching waves of drone attacks over several days on Russian targets that caused casualties and disrupted air traffic. He suggested European countries had encouraged Kyiv to launch the attacks to undermine peace efforts led by US President Donald Trump.
Russia and Ukraine each released 390 prisoners on Friday and said they would free more in the coming days, an initiative agreed in talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Turkiye last week.
“We remain committed to a peace settlement. We are always open to talks...and let me stress that we are committed to the agreements that were achieved recently in Istanbul,” Lavrov said.
“We are working actively on the second part of the agreements which call for preparation by each side of a draft document setting out the conditions for achieving a reliable, long-term agreement on a settlement.”
“As soon as the exchange of prisoners of war is completed we will be ready to hand to the Ukrainian side a draft of such a document which the Russian side is now completing.”
Lavrov said the surge of Ukrainian drone attacks — some 800 sent against Russian targets over the last three days — was “a direct consequence” of support for Ukraine by European Union countries whose leaders visited Kyiv in recent days.
“We are certain that they will be held accountable for their share of responsibility for these crimes,” Lavrov said, referring to the European countries.
“This is clearly an attempt to disrupt peace talks and undermine progress made in Istanbul following the agreements between the presidents of Russia and the United States...We will continue this work no matter what provocations there may be.”
Lavrov’s ministry earlier vowed to respond to the attacks.
In Kyiv, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told reporters that Kyiv was waiting for Russia’s proposals on the form of talks, a ceasefire and a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.
Sybiha, quoted by Ukrainian media, said Kyiv would be in favor of expanding such a meeting to include US President Donald Trump.

“We believe that this meeting could take place in an expanded format,” Sybiha was quoted as saying. “We would like very much for President Trump to be included.”
Upsurge nin drone strikes
Ukraine has offered little comment on the drone strikes, though it acknowledged hitting a battery plant on Friday in Russia’s central Lipetsk region.
Ukraine has also accused Russia of staging periodic mass drone attacks. One such attack on Sunday, described as the largest in the three-year-old war, destroyed homes and killed one woman.
Authorities in Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa accused Russia of striking port infrastructure with missiles on Friday, killing two people.
Prosecutors in eastern Donetsk region, the focal point of the war’s frontline, said three people were killed in shelling incidents in different parts of the region.


Sanction on Harvard’s foreign students strikes at the heart of the university’s global allure

Sanction on Harvard’s foreign students strikes at the heart of the university’s global allure
Updated 24 May 2025
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Sanction on Harvard’s foreign students strikes at the heart of the university’s global allure

Sanction on Harvard’s foreign students strikes at the heart of the university’s global allure
  • Students say their hopes and dreams are at stake

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.: For students around the world, an acceptance letter to Harvard University has represented the pinnacle of achievement, offering a spot among the elite at a campus that produces Nobel Prize winners, captains of industry and global leaders.
That allure is now in jeopardy. In its intensifying fight with the White House, Harvard was dealt its heaviest blow yet on Thursday, when the government blocked the Ivy League school from enrolling foreign students. The move threatens to undermine Harvard’s stature, its revenue and its appeal among top scholars around the world.
Even more than the government’s $2.6 billion in research cuts, the administration’s action represents an existential threat for Harvard. The school summed it up in a lawsuit seeking to block the action: “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
Within hours of the decision, the consequences started becoming clear. Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth, who just finished her first year in a Harvard graduate program, is waiting to find out if she can return next year, the royal palace said. The Chinese government publicly questioned whether Harvard’s international standing will endure.
“The relevant actions by the US side will only damage its own image and international credibility,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a briefing in Beijing.
A federal judge on Friday blocked the administration’s decision as the lawsuit plays out, but the order is only temporary.
Students say their hopes and dreams are at stake
On the Harvard campus, international students said they were stunned, confused and deeply concerned about what the revocation means for their degrees, their future plans and their legal status in the United States.
Walid Akef, a Harvard graduate student in art history from Egypt, said the Trump administration action would cost him “dreams, hopes and 20 years of my life.”
“Coming to Harvard, I’m not exaggerating. I planned for it for 15 years,” Akef said. He earned two master’s degrees and learned multiple languages before arriving at the university. He also worries what the changes will mean for his family, since his wife is pregnant and will soon be unable to travel.
“So this is absolutely disastrous. I’m going to lose not just stability, but I also lose my dreams and then lose, I don’t know, my beautiful life.”
Akef is cautiously optimistic that Harvard “will take care of this,” but he is also considering other options as US policy becomes increasingly inhospitable to foreign students.
A graduating law student from Asia said he had planned to stay in the United States and find work, “but not anymore.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do, but my future doesn’t appear to be here,” said the student, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
Changes could erase a quarter of the student body
With a $53 billion endowment, Harvard has the means to weather federal funding losses that would cripple other institutions. But this new sanction strikes at the heart of its campus.
Already, the change is causing disarray, as thousands of students consider whether to transfer elsewhere or risk being in the country illegally. It could wipe out a quarter of the university’s total student body, while halving some of its graduate schools and threatening students who work as lab researchers and teaching assistants. Some sports teams would be left nearly empty.
For many, it has been a time of panicked calls home and huddles with fellow international students. For Kat, a data science math student from China, the news comes as she prepares to graduate from Harvard next week.
“My biggest fear is whether I would get deported immediately, because we’re not sure about our status,” said Kat, who spoke on the condition that she be identified only by her first name out of concern about retaliation.
If the government’s action stands, Harvard would be banned from admitting new international students for at least two school years. Even if it regains its place as a global magnet, top students may shy away for fear of future government reprisals, the school said in its lawsuit.
The university enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston. India and China send more students to the US than any other countries.
Asked if he was considering restrictions on other universities, President Donald Trump said, “We’re taking a look at a lot of things.”
“Harvard’s going to have to change its ways. So are some others,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office. He added, “We don’t want troublemakers here.”
A time to weigh other opportunities
In its court filing, Harvard listed some of its most notable alumni who enrolled as foreign students. The list includes Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the former president of Liberia; Empress Masako of Japan; and many leaders of major corporations.
While foreigners set to graduate from Harvard next week can still do so, the remaining current students and those bound for the university in the fall were weighing other opportunities. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, for one, said Friday that it would welcome international students already at Harvard and those who have been admitted.
“It feels like my world has exploded,” said Fang, a Chinese student who was accepted to Harvard for a master’s program. She also spoke on the condition that only her first name be used out of fear that she could be targeted.
Her student visa to the US was approved the day before the latest Harvard news broke. “If America becomes a country that doesn’t welcome me, I don’t want to go there.”
The action has dominated news in countries around the world, said Mike Henniger, president and CEO of Illume Student Advisory Services, a company that works with colleges in the US, Canada and Europe to recruit international students. He is currently traveling in Japan and awoke to the news Friday with dozens of emails from colleagues.
The reactions from the international community, he said, were incredulous: “’Unbelievable!’ ‘Oh My God!’ ‘Unreal!’“
For incoming freshmen who just got accepted to Harvard — and already committed — the timing could not be worse, but they are such strong students that any top university in the world would want to offer them a spot, he said.
“I think the bigger story is the students around the country that aren’t a Harvard student, the students that scraped by to get into a state university and are thinking: ‘Are we next?’” he said. “The Harvard kids are going to be OK. It’s more about the damage to the American education brand. The view of the US being a less welcoming place for international students.”

 


UN refugee agency fears more than 400 fleeing Rohingya died this month in separate boat incidents

UN refugee agency fears more than 400 fleeing Rohingya died this month in separate boat incidents
Updated 24 May 2025
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UN refugee agency fears more than 400 fleeing Rohingya died this month in separate boat incidents

UN refugee agency fears more than 400 fleeing Rohingya died this month in separate boat incidents
  • UNHCR said it has collected reports from family members and others of two separate boat tragedies off the coast of Myanmar
  • About 1 million Rohingya, who are predominantly Muslim, are in camps in Bangladesh after leaving Myanmar

GENEVA: The UN refugee agency said Friday it fears that 427 Rohingya fleeing Myanmar and a refugee camp in Bangladesh may have died at sea this month.
UNHCR said it has collected reports from family members and others of two separate boat tragedies off the coast of Myanmar in May. It acknowledged that details remained unclear but that enough information has been collected and verified to bring the incidents to light publicly.
About 1 million Rohingya, who are predominantly Muslim, are in camps in Bangladesh after leaving Myanmar. They include about 740,000 who fled a brutal “clearance campaign” in 2017 by Myanmar’s security forces, who were accused of committing mass rapes and killings.
A first boat that left from a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, and traveled to Rakhine State in neighboring Myanmar to pick up more people sank on May 9, with only 66 survivors among a total of 267 people on board, UNHCR said.
The Geneva-based agency said reports indicated a second boat with 247 people on board that made a similar journey capsized a day later, with only 21 survivors.
“Reports have been coming in and it has been very hard to confirm what has happened, but the fear is that this number of people may have lost their lives at sea in the region,” said UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch.
“Before these two tragedies, some 30 Rohingya were reported to have died or gone missing in boat journeys in 2025,” he said. “So if confirmed, this is a huge jump.”
Thousands of Rohingya each year attempt to cross the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, and often the fates of those who have gone missing go unexplained. Even when officials knew the boats’ locations, maritime authorities to rescue some of them have gone ignored, UNHCR has said.
A total of 657 people died or went missing in the regional waters in more than 150 boat journeys by fleeing Rohingya last year, UNHCR said.
The recent monsoon season brought perilous maritime conditions including strong winds, rain and rough seas, UNHCR said, adding that it was investigating reports about the fate of a third boat carrying 188 Rohingya that left Myanmar on May 14.
Many Rohingya have fled by sea to Indonesia, which has reported an increase in the number of Rohingya refugees in recent months.