This weekend, an apparent second assassination attempt was thwarted against Donald Trump at his Florida golf club, and the hosts of The View found the news to be a devastating statement on the reality of modern America’s political discourse during Monday’s (September 16) live show.
To open the segment, the day’s moderator Whoopi Goldberg said, “The FBI says they’re investigating another apparent assassination attempt against former President Trump. He was playing golf at one of his Florida golf clubs when Secret Service agents spotted a man with an AK 47-style rifle about 500 yards away. Now agents fired shots and the man fled and was later apprehended. President Biden and VP Harris made statements saying that they’re thankful he was unharmed and that there was no place for this kind of violence. Still, we’ve got 50 days until the election. You know, will this sanity end, or do you think it’s going to get worse?”
“I have some real questions. We know there was already one attempt… and someone was able to 500 yards of him. Now, former U.S. presidents have faced assassination plots — we forget someone shot at the White House when Barack Obama was there — but never something that got this close,” former Trump administration member Alyssa Farah Griffin said of the Secret Service’s handling of the situation, after noting that she is still in communication with some members of that very force. However, she also attributed some of the complications of protecting the former president to his decision to golf in a place where he could be easily reached by outsiders. “I think there needs to be a true law enforcement post-mortem of what can better be done. And I know some of this is where he chooses to be, but then he needs to not do that.”
Sunny Hostin agreed that the fact that the alleged would-be shooter, who has since been identified and detained, getting so close to the property with a weapon was shocking: “It was shocking to me that it was 500 yards… They saw a gun through a fence 500 yards away. So in that respect, they were doing their jobs right,” she said. “And also because very hard to secure a golf course, when those courses are sometimes on highways, it’s very difficult. But when it comes to protecting a former president or a future president, I will say this, I am so saddened and disturbed by the fact that political violence is so normalized in this country. It’s something that started when Steve Scalise was shot, and then I think we saw more of it with Nancy Pelosi. And so it’s the country.”
Sara Haines then agreed that this is part of an unfortunate trend of escalating violent rhetoric on the political front and called for social media regulations, saying, “The way that politicians are speaking right now, we never would have seen that 20 years ago…. And it’s not just on the national level. This trickle down, of we’re seeing it in politicians, but somehow that’s come all the way down. A lot of that’s due to technology and social media. The reach. There’s always hate speech. There’s always been awful things said, but now the reach of that hate speech is great. Even in Europe that created, like the council, the no hate speech movement, which the one step before violence is hate speech. And we have no regulation, because we live in a country that I understand values the First Amendment. But there’s got to be a way that, whether it’s regulating social media, that communities have to come together and change this.”
Ana Navarro compounded the assertion that this is part of a growing trend, saying, “We kept hearing yesterday… elected officials on both sides of the aisle tweet out in America, there is no room, there is no space for political violence. And you know, we condemn political violence. We condemn it no matter who it’s perpetrated on or attempted on. But what America do these folks live in that they think there’s no space for political violence? When Gabby Giffords, the congresswoman from Arizona, got shot in the head at an event in her district? When the congressional baseball team got shot at? When Nancy Pelosi’s husband got his skull bashed in with a hammer from a political enemy? When we had January 6, when people raided, stormed the Capitol? When we’ve had now two different attempts on Donald Trump? So this is the America that we live in, and political violence is very much a part of it. Let me tell you, bomb threats in Springfield. I consider that violence, threats against threats against Taylor Swift because made an endorsement, which we all have a right to do, I consider that political violence.”
Instead of — or at least in addition to — social media regulations like what Haines proposed, Navarro wants to see a more serious conversation about gun sense laws: “We need to talk about how people with mental health issues keep getting easy access to assault weapons, weapons the last assassination of temples and AR 15. This was an AK 47 so we need to have that conversation in America,” she said. “It needs to be bipartisan, and members of Congress need to realize that it is not just that when there’s a crazy shooter out there, it’s not just Democrat it’s, you know, it’s everything, and we’re all at risk. And this is our conversation. It’s we need to help.”
CONCERNS OVER RISE IN POLITICAL VIOLENCE: As the FBI investigates an apparent assassination attempt on former Pres. Trump, #TheView co-hosts weigh in as a suspect has been identified. pic.twitter.com/88rWgCoooS
— The View (@TheView) September 16, 2024
The View, weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC
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