Hours after explosive devices were sent to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and CNN, President Trump told a crowd in Mosinee, Wisconsin that bombs are bad, but so is the media.
“Any acts or threats of political violence are an attack on our democracy itself,” the president, who only last week celebrated a congressman’s physical attack on a reporter, said. “Such conduct must be fiercely opposed and firmly prosecuted,” he went on. “We want all sides to come together in peace and harmony. Those engaged in the political arena must stop treating political opponents as being morally defective,” he continued, weeks after calling Democrats “evil.”
“The media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and the constant negative, and oftentimes, false attacks and stories. Have to do it. They’ve gotta stop.”
US President Trump said the media should set a "civil tone" following a series of bomb scares, taking no responsibility for the national political environment as he spoke at a rally in Wisconsin https://t.co/e58yJHTfaE pic.twitter.com/nJ2o9yBntP
— CNN International (@cnni) October 25, 2018
Staffers at CNN were less than thrilled with the president’s speech, during which authorities announced they had discovered another suspicious package addressed to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) in a postal facility in Los Angeles.
“Trump unleashed the dogs of hatred in this country from the day he declared he was running for President and they’ve been snarling and barking at each other ever since.
It’s just inevitable there are going to be acts of violence that grow out of that,” says CNN’s @David_Gergen pic.twitter.com/Gt3WNwITYb
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) October 25, 2018