Trump once said bodyguards should stop protecting Hillary Clinton - his comments came back to haunt him

Yesterday, a series of explosive devices and suspicious packages were discovered at homes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as the New York offices of CNN.

A similar device was also found at the home of billionaire philanthropist George Soros and other leading Democrats. The FBI is searching for suspects and have warned that other packages may still be undiscovered.

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has labelled these attempts as "an act of terror" and, while it was fortunate that nobody was hurt, it does bring into further question the rhetoric that Donald Trump has promoted as president.

Democrats have asked Trump to restrict his language and condone any acts of violence, while Republican senator Jeff Flake said the POTUS needs to stop referring to the press as the "enemy of the people".

In a speech given after the discovery of the explosives, Trump said:

In these times, we have to unify, we have to come together, and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America.

We are extremely angry, upset, unhappy about what we witnessed this morning and we will get to the bottom of it.

This statement might feel a bit forced and uncharacteristic from a man who only a few days ago applauded a congressman for physically assaulting a journalist, and said that there was violence and bigotry on "many sides" after Charlottesville.

Even before he became president, Trump was promoting violence against his opponents - namely one of yesterday's targets, Hillary Clinton.

In September 2016, Trump said at a campaign rally in Miami, Florida, that the Secret Service agents assigned to protect Clinton during the campaign should disarm.

I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons. I think they should disarm. Immediately.

Let’s see what happens to her. Take their guns away, OK. It’ll be very dangerous.

This was after Trump had claimed that Clinton's proposed gun policies wanted to "destroy your Second Amendment".

As Clinton was the target of an assassination attempt yesterday, these comments have once again come back to haunt Trump.

Let's not forget the times that Trump retweeted gifs and videos of him displaying violence towards Hillary Clinton and CNN.

HT New York Times

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