Letters from an American - June 15, 2025

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

June 15th, 2025. Yesterday began with the horrific news that a gunman had shot two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses in what Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said appeared to be a politically motivated assassination. State Representative Melissa Hortman, who was the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, and her husband Mark both died in the attack at their home in Brooklyn Park, a city near Minneapolis. The gunman also shot Democratic Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman nine times and his wife

Yvette eight at their home in Champlain. The hospital reports they are in stable condition after surgery. Law enforcement officers encountered the suspected gunman, 57-year-old Vance Bolter, coming out of Hortman's house. He was dressed as a police officer. Officers exchanged gunfire with him before he fled, leaving behind his vehicle, which looked much like a police car. In it was a list of dozens of people he wanted to kill. They were mostly Democrats or people connected to abortion rights efforts. Law enforcement officers captured Bolter tonight. MAGA Republicans are working hard to identify Bolter with what Senator Mike Lee, a Republican of Utah, called Marxism, and Senator Bernie

Moreno, a Republican of Ohio, called the extreme left. But as investigative journalist Phil Williams of News Channel 5 Nashville notes, public databases show Bolter was in the past a registered Republican. His evangelical religion and his anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion stances reflect MAGA positions. Bolter's roommate told reporters that Bolter was a strong supporter of President Trump. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, noted that MAGA has been bathed in political violence for the last five years. Trump's pardoning of the January 6th rioters, including

those convicted of extreme violence, became a clear endorsement of violence committed in his name. Trump has encouraged violence and cozied up to brutal dictators, while MAGA has fetishized guns. When he celebrates violence, unhinged people listen. Murphy points out that while people of all political persuasions commit violence, no democratic leader encourages violence as a political norm, the way Trump and MAGA have done, citing a straight line from January 6th to the pardons to the assault on Senator Padilla to Minnesota. After the shootings, Andrew Solander of Axios reported that lawmakers of both parties are

concerned about their own safety as political violence increases. The Minnesota attacks happened just days after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's security guard shoved Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat of California, to the ground and handcuffed him after he asked a question. This assault sparked apparent fury among the Democrats on Capitol Hill as they challenged their Republican colleagues, largely unsuccessfully, to speak up against the assault on a senator. The entire Minnesota delegation to the U.S. Congress issued a joint statement on politically

motivated shootings. Democrats and Republicans together wrote, today we speak with one voice to express our outrage, grief and condemnation of this horrible attack on public servants. There is no place in our democracy for politically motivated violence. We are praying for John and Yvette's recovery and we grieve the loss of Melissa and Mark with their family, colleagues and

Minnesotans across the state. We are grateful for law enforcement's swift response to the situation and continued efforts. After that start to the day, the country turned to the No Kings protests. In a dramatic rejection of Trump's consolidation of power, at least five million Americans turned out for peaceful protests across the country. Cities turned out in huge numbers of protesters at more than 2,000 planned events, and small towns, including those in Republican-dominated states, also boasted rallies. The mood was festive as people held signs with anti-Trump and pro-American images and slogans and sang Woody Guthrie's famous American anthem,

This Land is Your Land. American flags were everywhere. In contrast to the huge turnout for the protests, the military parade in Washington, D.C. was a bust. Although Trump had claimed it would be a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the American army, it was also his 79th birthday and was widely interpreted primarily as a celebration of that occasion. Trump has wanted a parade since 2017 when he viewed the traditional Bastille Day military parade in Paris. At the time, he told reporters, it was one of the greatest parades I've ever seen. We're going to have to try to top it. But organizers had had only two months to arrange for the parade and the result was badly organized with relatively few people turning out, especially after forecasts of storms that evening.

Far from the crisp marching of the military parades that Trump seemed to want to top, the U.S. soldiers appeared to shuffle, leading to a social media debate over whether they had been ordered to march in an at-ease march instead of a more rigorous step, or whether they were silently protesting. Photographers recorded empty bleachers and thin crowds. Few Republican lawmakers attended, but cameras caught Trump looking miserable and Secretary of State Marco Rubio yawning. The contrast between the protests and the military parade

suggested an important shift in political culture. The momentum and the joy, as well as the American flags, were on the side of those protesting Trump's growing authoritarianism. Trump looked weak and discouraged, and the crowds were clearly on the side of the protesters. Today, social media, including a Russian account, got into the act of making fun of Trump's military parade.

At the Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch noted that the flag is mightier than the tank. The rejection Trump faced yesterday, podcaster Jack Hopkins noted, was a big tub of rock salt poured on his wounds of lifelong insecurity. That profound injury to Trump's sense of self braced observers for a lashing out of epic proportions as he tries to demonstrate that he is, in fact, powerful. We got that anger and fear in a social media post at 8 43 p.m. tonight. In a post almost certainly not written by Trump, his account backed off on Trump's recent retreat from mass deportations. Instead, the account said, ICE officers are herewith ordered,

by notice of this truth, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest mass deportation program in history. The account then declared war on Democrats. The day after a gunman shot two Democratic lawmakers and their spouses in their homes, Trump's account posted, We must expand efforts to detain and deport illegal aliens in America's largest cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where millions upon millions of illegal aliens reside.

These and other such cities are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use illegal aliens to expand their voter base, cheat in elections, and grow the welfare state, robbing good-paying jobs and benefits from hardworking American citizens. These radical left democrats are sick of mind, hate our country, and actually want to destroy our inner cities, and they are doing a good job of it. There is something wrong with them. That is why they believe in open borders, transgender for everybody, and men playing in women's sports. And that is why I want ICE, Border Patrol, and our great and patriotic law enforcement officers

to focus on our crime-ridden and deadly inner cities and those places where sanctuary cities play such a big role. You don't hear about sanctuary cities in our heartland. The post-promised ICE that real Americans are cheering you on every day and urge them to reverse the tide of mass destruction migration that has turned once idyllic towns into scenes of third world dystopia.

It doubled down on the neo-Nazi idea of remigration and concluded to ICE, FBI, DEA, ATF, the patriots at Pentagon and the State Department, you have my unwavering support. Now go, get the job done. DJT. Will Trump's demands swing people behind him? Americans have already turned against Trump's handling of immigration and deportations by significant margins.

G. Eliot Morris, of Strength in Numbers, summarized the polls from June 9 to June 13. Answering the question, do you approve of the way the president is handling immigration, respondents for YouGov Economist were the only ones to produce a majority of just four points saying yes. For APNORC, Quinnipiac, and Washington Post-GMU, the answer was no by as much as 15 points. On every other question dealing with immigration, more people opposed Trump's policies than supported them by as much as 16 points. Trump's other policies are underwater, meaning more people oppose them than approve of them, as well.

Only 27 percent of registered voters support the Republicans' budget reconciliation bill, while 53 percent oppose it. As for Trump himself, a Quinnipiac poll from June 11th showed that 38% of registered voters approve of the way he is handling the job of the presidency, while 54% disapprove. Only 30% of registered voters approve strongly of the way he is handling the job, while 49% strongly disapprove. While Trump and his loyalists are trying to project an image of invincibility, their actual power seems to be faltering. Ten years ago tomorrow, on June 16, 2015, Trump rode down the escalator at Trump Tower to a lobby filled with extras to announce he was running

for president. One reporter called his speech, in which he claimed that Mexico was sending criminals and rapists to the United States, eccentric. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. Thank you.