It's been a wild weekend.
The attempted assassination of former President Trump—which also left a spectator killed and two others critically injured—rocked the nation. There were bipartisan condemnations of the shooting and calls for answers from the Secret Service about the circumstances that made the attempt possible. There were also, unfortunately, conspiracy theories floated by many—including Republicans who baselessly blamed President Biden and the Democrats for the shooting, even with little information on the shooter available. (It later emerged that the shooter was a registered Republican who appears to have donated $15 to a progressive political organization in January 2021.)
And one of the Republicans spreading that lie—Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio)—has just been named as Trump's choice for vice president. Yes...really.
On Saturday, Vance posted on X: "The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination." (Again, at the time Vance posted that, there was very little information about the shooter.)
As my colleagues and I have written, this is not the first time Vance has made incendiary—and baseless—statements: he has repeated a series of disproven election lies; has called on journalists to be investigated; and...once called Trump "America's Hitler." As my colleague Inae Oh writes about his evolution from making that comment to becoming an anointed leader of the MAGA movement: "Whatever prompted the change, as of Monday, the altered Vance appears to have successfully turned himself into a vice presidential candidate."
—Julianne McShane
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