CNN anchor Jake Tapper condemned the United States’ current era of political violence in an impassioned monologue on Sunday, rebuking it as “repugnant and un-American,” after former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt on Saturday.
“I keep hearing from politicians this morning that political violence has no place in America,” Tapper said on State of the Union, his voice cracking in his delivery. “Would that that were true. We are living in an era of political violence.”
Tapper recounted the last decade or so of violent attacks on national politicians, including the 2011 shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ); the 2017 attack on Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA); and the assault on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, in 2022, one that was meant for her, among other unsuccessful attempts.
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“There is something troubling the American soul,” Tapper said. “Right now, too many Americans see those with whom they disagree as the enemy to be shunned, to be banned, to be ostracized, to be threatened with violence or even to have that violence carried out.”
He also chastised those who online mocked the attack on Trump, arguing it only feeds into the cycle of political division. “We urge in the strongest possible terms that this election and all our political differences must be determined by ballots and votes, not by bullets, and that this rhetoric of dehumanization stop,” Tapper said.
“Political violence has no place in America?” he continued. “I wish that that were true.”
