All The Targets In This Week’s Mail Attacks Have Been Trump’s Worst Enemies
Suspicious packages and pipe bombs have been mailed to several of the president’s favorite punching bags.
Explosive devices and suspicious packages are showing up at the homes and offices of top Democrats, the people who fund them and the press that covers them. Most, if not all, of them have made their way to people and organizations that President Donald Trump despises.
Trump has repeatedly called his followers to violence against the people and organizations that were victimized this week. There were no confirmed motives or suspects by Wednesday afternoon. But his violent rhetoric over the past two years has led one of his biggest enemies, CNN, to ascribe some blame for the attacks to the president.
In a statement Wednesday, CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker said that Trump and members of the administration “should understand that their words matter.”
“There is a total and complete lack of understanding at the White House about the seriousness of their continued attacks on the media,” Zucker said. “The President, and especially the White House Press Secretary, should understand their words matter. Thus far, they have shown no comprehension of that.”
House and Senate Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer issued even stronger statements, connecting Trump’s rhetoric to the neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year, as well as to violence against protesters at his rallies and more.
The revelation on Thursday that two more of Trump’s nemeses ― former Vice President Joe Biden and actor Robert De Niro ― were targeted only added fuel to the fire.
On Wednesday, CNN evacuated its New York offices after an apparent pipe bomb and an envelope with white powder were discovered in the mailroom. Several top Democratic individuals received similar threats ― Bill and Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama, George Soros, Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.) and others received explosive devices or suspicious packages in the mail.
All of them have been Trump’s very public enemies. CNN has been the acute focus of Trump’s ongoing war against the media, or what he calls “the enemy of the people.”
He’s called CNN fake news. His family has laughed as Trump supporters angrily call out and threaten its reporters at the president’s rallies. The president has lauded a video depicting him beating up a person with the CNN logo superimposed on his head. Press freedom experts have long pegged Trump’s rhetoric as the begging of violent ends for American reporters. CNN’s inclusion in Wednesday’s terrorist activity was inevitable.
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