For the second time in three months, Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt, but this time the Secret Service was able to subdue the gunman before he fired off a shot. But this hasn’t alleviated any of the fears about political violence in this country. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: For the second time in three months, Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt. But this time, the Secret Service was able to subdue the gunman before he fired a shot. But this hasn’t alleviated any of the fears about political violence in this country. It’s getting worse and we’re acting like there’s nothing to it. Like this is okay. Like this is normal. It’s not normal, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve got Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins with me to talk about it. The most disturbing thing I gotta tell you as I read these stories is the idiots, these talking head idiots on cable news, basically cable news, whether it’s Fox, whether it’s CNN, MSNBC, hell, now it’s gotten into traditional corporate media. This ain’t a big thing. This is nothing to it. He was 500 yards away. He was five football fields away. He only took one shot. It’s like the same BS we heard when Trump was almost shot in the head. Okay. We’ve got, whether you like the guy, I’m not voting for Trump. Let me just, no way I’m voting for the guy. But we’re talking about an important part of democracy here. When you have these idiots, these talking heads that show up on the scene and say, there’s nothing to this, there’s nothing to see here. It’s infuriating to me. And not only that, it is such a threat to the Democratic process in this country. We don’t kill people who we disagree with
Farron Cousins: Exactly. Look, I don’t disagree with you on any of that at all. And I do think that obviously this time was different because the Secret Service was paying attention. Had they not been paying attention, it wouldn’t have mattered if it was 500 yards away, 200, 150, because he would’ve kept getting closer. The Secret Service through almost a miracle you could call it, saw the barrel of a gun sticking out from a bush. I wouldn’t recognize that. And because they did, they were able to get him. He ran, they chased him down. You had the local cops helping as well. But to me, part of this story that is driving me crazy, the more we learn about this guy is this is somebody that should not have been a free citizen in this country. This is a man that should have been locked behind bars, at least as early as the nineties, possibly going back to the 1980s. When you listen to the police in North Carolina where he lived tell the stories about, oh yeah, we had an armed standoff with him this time. We had another armed standoff with him here. He had weapons of mass destruction.
Mike Papantonio: Never spent one day in jail. Has never been to jail one day for any of this stuff. And all the idiots, the talking head idiots on the cable cabal is what it’s become, a cable cabal of talking idiots get on the scene and say, oh, well this is, just crazy statements. Like, if I have to hear Joy Reid use the word existential threat one more time, all the talking heads, everything’s an existential threat. He’s Hitler. He’s going to destroy democracy. He’s never gonna leave if we elect him President. That has an effect whether we want to agree with it or not. Again, I am not voting for the guy. I think he’s a nutcase, but this kind of talk that’s accepted by just run of the mill Democrats who say, this is the new norm. And it’s okay for people like Wallace or Joy Reid to go on the air and equate him to Hitler. And if he’s elected that we’re gonna lose democracy, that he won’t leave office if he’s there. I mean, I could go on forever. And we want to say this is no big deal? This isn’t important? 25 years ago, if there had been an assassination attempt on a past president or a presidential candidate, this place would be going crazy. Tune on MSNBC right now. Tune on CNN. See how many times they try to downplay this, like it ain’t a problem. It’s a hell of a problem. It’s a fundamental part of democracy that we should allow people to state an opinion, whether we agree with it or not, and not go out and freaking kill ’em because we disagree with ’em. That’s where we are in this democracy right now. And you know what? Democrats, just like Republicans are all part of it.
Farron Cousins: We had a time in this country, most of the history of this country, when you had any kind of tragedy or almost tragedy, whatever you want to call it here, everybody came together. We saw it after natural disasters. We saw it after 9/11, of course. And I think a lot of that really changed after Hurricane Katrina because that was a natural disaster where everybody should have come together. But instead of that, there was a lot of finger pointing and I will say rightfully so. We had massive government failures with that. And then ever since then, every disaster, every response has become more and more polarized. The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster was polarizing. You had people defending BP. So we all became more and more tribal over the years to the point now where you have plenty of people right now saying, well, it happened because this guy is actually a Republican and he was sick of Trump and wanted him out. And others say, no, he’s supported and gave money to Democrats. That’s why he hates Trump.
Mike Papantonio: That’s the talking point.
Farron Cousins: It doesn’t matter who he is.
Mike Papantonio: Can you imagine, here’s a picture of the sticker on back of his truck. It says Biden and Harris. That’s the talking point. And these idiots, I swear to God, I have to turn the television off when I see Joy Reid come in or Wallace or any of those people start talking about this stuff. And if I have to hear existential threat to democracy one more time. He is, look, he went through four years as president. Okay. There was none of that that happened. January 6th is an issue we have to talk about, but it’s not like turning democracy on top of its head. And you would think these folks on cable news, the cable news cabal, are scaring the out of everybody to where it’s time, let’s go kill the guy. That’s why this is happening. And they’re talking about, well, is he a Democrat of is he a Republican? Who the hell cares?
Farron Cousins: He’s a crazy person.
Mike Papantonio: He’s a crazy person that threatened the life of an ex-president. Okay. And we act like that’s no big thing because it’s Trump. How much time do we spend on this network where you blast Trump every single day, five times a day? We do that for a reason, right? We do it because we believe that. Have you ever said it’s a good idea to go out and shoot the son of a? Has that ever happened?
Farron Cousins: Nope.
Mike Papantonio: Of course not. Have you ever glorified the idea of a guy like this going out and taking a shot, potentially killing an ex-president?
Farron Cousins: No, absolutely not.
Mike Papantonio: Of course not. But right now on cable news, it’s all Trump’s fault. Trump has brought all this on himself. You know what? There’s some truth to that. But you cannot ignore these idiots on corporate cabal news that are pumping this up to where we don’t even have anything that looks like a frigging democracy. When we can say that we put on Liz Cheney, great example. How in the hell have we started embracing people like Liz Cheney, who is nothing more than an extension of daddy who was a psychopath war criminal? Okay. Who pumped him up after he killed thousands of people in Iraq for a no good reason. Lied us into a war, weapons of mass destruction was his lie. And his idiot daughter is out there extending that argument. Like saying, we gotta get tough. We gotta get tough. She’s one of the talking heads, she’s one of the people that go this far to saying, go kill the guy. I mean, if you listen her language, it’s ugly language. And the Democrats, hell, they’ve embraced her. She’s like one of us right now. Really? She’s not one of me.
