President Donald Trump’s narrative on political violence faltered Monday when a reporter confronted him with a list of right-wing attacks on Democrats.
The president has sharply escalated his attacks on “the left” since right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated last week in Utah, placing blame for political violence on the side of the aisle that isn’t his.
“If you look at the problem, the problem is on the left. It’s not on the right,” he told reporters on Sunday. “When you look at the agitators, you look at the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag burnings all over the place—that’s the left. That’s not the right.”
On Monday, however, CBS News’ Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes challenged that claim by presenting Trump, 79, with a list of political violence targeting Democrats.
“Given the killing of [Minnesota Democrat] Melissa Hortman, the attack on [former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband] Paul Pelosi, the attack on [former Arizona Democrat] Gabby Giffords, the attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, why make the case that violence is only on one side?” Cordes asked.
Cocking his head back, Trump replied “I didn’t say it’s on one side,” before continuing, “but I say the radical left causes tremendous violence and they seem to do it in a bigger way.”
He claimed that the “radical left really causes a lot of problems for this country,” saying, “I really think they hate our country.”
When another reporter asked about his plans to crack down on the “radical left,” Trump deferred to his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who was also in the Oval Office for the presser.
Miller said the administration would target those who are “paying for violence,” echoing a plan he outlined earlier on Charlie Kirk’s talk show, which Vice President JD Vance hosted on Monday.
Miller and Trump at times appeared to conflate political violence with not inherently violent protests such as the Black Lives Matter movement and June’s anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles.
Trump went on an extended tangent about protesters using “beautiful, brand new hammers” to break concrete apart, apparently referring to an incident during the Los Angeles protests.
The president was also asked why he didn’t lower flags to half-staff after Hortman’s assassination, as he had ordered following Kirk’s killing.
“Well if the governor had asked me to do that I would have done that. But the governor of Minnesota didn’t ask me,” he said.
However, CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins later pointed out on X that Trump had said after Hortman’s murder that calling Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, would “waste time.”
