President Donald Trump once again blamed “the radical left” for recent spikes in political violence — and suggested the potential for escalating violence in the country.
“The radical left is causing this problem, not the right,” he said Thursday. “The radical left, and it’s going to get worse, and ultimately it’s going to go back on them. I mean, bad things happen when they play these games.”
“To give you a little clue: The right is a lot tougher than the left, but the right is not doing this,” the president continued. “They’re not doing it, and they better not get them energized, because it won’t be good for the left and I don’t want to see that happen either.”
Trump’s statement was in response to a question about who he holds responsible for political violence after a shooting at a Texas ICE facility on Tuesday. Three detainees were shot and one died. The suspect died by a self-inflicted gun wound. While a motive has not been determined, Federal Bureau of Investigation officials said that bullets engraved with “anti-ICE” were recovered at the scene.
“The radical left is causing the problem,” Trump said Thursday. “They’re out of control.”
Since the murder of right-wing political activist and Trump ally Charlie Kirk two weeks ago, Trump and Republicans have blamed Democrats and the left for increasing political violence.
The Trump administration has moved to address what it calls left-wing domestic terrorism. On Monday, Trump signed an executive order designating antifa — a decentralized anti-fascist political movement — as a terrorist organization. The president said in a post to Truth Social that another executive order is in the works that aims to dismantle “domestic terrorist organizations” that he alleges are inciting political violence against the right.
So far, the White House has not singled out left-wing organizations or individuals by name, with the exception of billionaire philanthropist George Soros and the Soros Foundation.
According to a report from the New York Times, a senior Justice Department official has instructed more than six DOJ attorneys to draw up plans to investigate a group funded by Soros.
Left-wing political violence is on the rise, according to an analysis by The Atlantic, but it is part of a broader rise in political violence writ large. On Jan. 6, 2021, hordes of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of the election that Trump lost. In recent years, officials on all sides of the political spectrum have been the subject of targeted violence.