On Thursday night, Jimmy Kimmel did a White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) skit on his show, saying Melania Trump had the glow of an “expectant widow.” Two days later, another maniac rushed the actual event, opening fire, and leaving behind a manifesto that made it clear he wanted to take out as many White House officials as possible.

This weekend, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) was asked a very simple question: Should Democrats reduce the rhetoric that is contributing to political violence? He acted as though the question was coming out of left field and that it made no sense.

Since Raskin seemed confused about the question, I am going to enlighten him with the steady flow of Democrat rhetoric that has been spewed, going back to Trump’s first administration.

The Pattern Cannot Be Denied

Call it paranoia if you like, but it is hard to argue against Democrats getting the results they wanted with their violent rhetoric. The pattern started to develop in 2018 after two full years of Democrats getting the left riled up.

The match that lit the fire appeared to be comments by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who, according to Time Magazine, told a crowd:

“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

Her request was heard, and Trump staffers, as well as other Republicans and conservatives, started to get harassed regularly. The most famous of these was arguably then-Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders being told to leave the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia. After the incident, she posted to X:

"Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so."

It happened to her again in March 2026. USA Today reported Sanders as saying:

“Last week I was having lunch with two other moms at a restaurant when the owner approached a member of the State Police Executive Protection Detail and said my presence made their employees feel threatened and told us to leave.”

Then there was the threat made by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) during the overturning of Roe v. Wade, where CNN reported that he stood on the steps of the Supreme Court and stated:

“I want to tell you Gorsuch. I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

As we all know, Justice Kavanaugh was then the target of an abandoned assassination plot. Nicholas John Roske had traveled to the home of Kavanaugh to break into his house and kill him. Thankfully, he wound up calling the police on himself after texting his intent to his sister. She convinced Roske to call the police, and he was arrested before executing his plot. Roske later announced that he identified as a woman.

In October 2025, Roske was sentenced to more than eight years, with the FBI Director Kash Patel announcing:

“Nicholas Roske will now pay the price for attempting to assassinate a Supreme Court Justice in a violent plot to alter the court’s composition and its rulings. Violence against federal judges or other public officials is unacceptable and will be met by the full force of the law. The FBI will work aggressively with our law enforcement partners to detect and stop these schemes and protect our nation.”

Then, of course, there is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) targeting Charlie Kirk on its hate map, as well as a report spotlighting TPUSA as a hate organization. Four months after Kirk called out the SPLC, he was assassinated during an event. We covered this extensively in another deep dive last week (click here to read that report).

There are far too many comments about Trump to publish here, but we have all heard them. He is a “threat to democracy.” A “Hitler wannabe.” A Nazi. A fascist, a racist, etc. The list goes on and on. Including the shooting during the WHCA, there have been at least three direct attempts on Trump's life, plus the congressional baseball shooting, and the Kirk assassination.

Here is an interesting one… The Minocqua Brewing Company, which has promoted #freebeerday for when Trump dies. After the shooting, a post was made on the company’s social media page. Fox News reported it as saying:

"Well, we almost got #freebeerday. Either a brother or sister in the Resistance needs to work on their marksmanship or he faked another assassination to get a positive news cycle. We’ll never know."

The pattern is clear. Democrats get people whipped up until someone snaps, then Democrats do the mandatory “no place in our country for political violence” speeches. Before the ink is dry on their statements, they are cranking out the rhetoric again.

Gaslighting Americans

Dana Bash was interviewing Rep. Raskin on Sunday, the morning after the shooting. She asked him whether he and other Democrats should reconsider the heated rhetoric used toward Trump. He looked dumbfounded, responding:

"What rhetoric do you have in mind?"

He then claimed that he does not “personalize it,” that he only talks about the “policies of this administration, the authoritarianism.” In reality, Raskin, like other Democrats, has painted Trump as a threat to democracy and a fascist, all for the purpose of getting the left riled up.

And even if Raskin has never personally called Trump a Nazi or the many other insults we have heard, unless he only comes out of a bubble when he is speaking, he has to be aware of the comments from the likes of AOC and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX). His “what rhetoric” comment is an insult to our collective intelligence.

And I want to be clear here in that I do not give Trump and his administration a pass on the rhetoric. I have called out his chief communications official, Steven Cheung, numerous times for his childlike rants and insults. I have also called out Trump on the same front many times.

The nicknames and insults are childish and stupid, in my opinion. They don’t score points with people who are looking for a reason to pull the lever for a candidate. Talk policy, hit back with facts, not insults. It is far and away the most frustrating aspect of this administration for me.

But here is the big difference… When Trump, his staffers, or Republicans fire off rhetoric, the media loses its mind. When Democrats do it, the media is like one of those dashboard doggies that just keeps nodding its head up and down. The only time the media even hints at pushback is AFTER a shooting or assassination attempt. But then it goes away just as quickly as it came.

Remember when Joe Biden promised to dial it down after the first Trump assassination attempt, but then less than 24 hours later, while addressing the NAACP, Biden fired it right back up. Al Jazeera reported him telling the crowd:

“When you peacefully protested George Floyd’s murder, Donald Trump called for the National Guard to go after you. What in the hell is the matter with this man?”

Peacefully protest? Did Biden miss our city streets being set on fire? Did he miss the officers who were injured in these attacks? Did he forget about the more than $1 billion in damages done to our cities, as reported by Axios?

Just take a look at this table below and you can see how impactful some of this rhetoric has been, dating back to Trump’s first term:

Dems want everyone to believe their words have no consequences.

Cory Comperatore is dead, guilty of nothing more than supporting Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. Charlie Kirk was assassinated in broad daylight, leaving a widow behind and two children who will never truly know their father. What was his crime? Talking about the uncomfortable and inviting anyone to sit across from him and debate these topics. To make matters worse, after the WHCA shooting, Erika Kirk had an emotional breakdown for obvious reasons, being escorted out of the event in tears. Liberals mercilessly mocked her, with crying Erika Kirk memes already blowing up all over social media.

This country was about an inch away from a possible civil war erupting. Had Trump been shot and killed in Butler, PA, rather than “just” losing a chunk of his ear, there is no telling how his faithful MAGA supporters would have reacted.

On Saturday night, a Secret Service agent took a bullet to the chest. Were it not for his vest, his family and this country would be mourning his loss today.

Yet, Raskin has the audacity to ask, “What rhetoric do you have in mind?”

Mr. Raskin, we are not stupid, and neither are you. You had a chance to step up and be a hero, but instead, all you did was prove to every American that you are a spineless coward who will continue to gaslight the American people for one simple purpose: power.