Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

‘Take That Shot’: Dem C-SPAN Caller Praises Would-Be Trump Assassins

Screenshot/Rumble/C-SPAN

A caller to C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” show Wednesday said that two men who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump “had to step up and take that shot” to stop the former president.

A Secret Service agent thwarted an apparent assassination attempt on Trump Sunday by firing shots at Ryan Welsey Routh, who was allegedly lurking near Trump International Golf Club while the former president was playing a round of golf, two months after Trump was shot and slightly wounded in the right ear while giving a speech at a July 13 campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The caller, who was identified as a Democrat by “Washington Journal” host John McArdle, identified himself as a Vietnam War veteran.

“I just want to say I’m a very patriotic American. I did 20 years in the military, two tours in Vietnam, wounded in 1966, went back in 1968 and I look at myself and think about we as military men, we killed, captured, destroyed enemy by all means available,” the caller, who McArdle identified as Willie, said. “And I see we let this man, Trump, destroy America. And I look at it and say, well, these two people had to step up and take that shot. I’m 83, nothing to lose.”

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“I’m sorry, Willie, you’re not advocating violence, are you?” McArdle asked, with Willie responding, “Not violence. I’m talking about defending my country.”

A poll by Napolitan News Service showed that over a quarter of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters believed that the United States would have been better off if Trump had been killed.

Members of the Biden administration, including White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, have painted Trump as a “threat to democracy” repeatedly, including after Sunday’s assassination attempt. Other Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have echoed that theme.

The Trump campaign referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to a Monday post on Truth Social when asked for comment.

“The Rhetoric, Lies, as exemplified by the false statements made by Comrade Kamala Harris during the rigged and highly partisan ABC Debate, and all of the ridiculous lawsuits specifically designed to inflict damage on Joe’s, then Kamala’s, Political Opponent, ME, has taken politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust,” Trump said in the post. “Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!”