No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans issue vile reaction to Trump shooting

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

A shooter attempted to assassinate Trump at his Pennsylvania rally and Republicans have issued a disgusting reaction to it.Pre-order Shameless & buy book tour tickets: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/shamelessShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Given the news of the Trump assassination attempt, I thought it was necessary to do something of an emergency episode here. So today we're going to talk about what happened at Trump's Pennsylvania rally, the reaction from the Republicans, and what it means for Democrats moving forward. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So let me say first that violence is not the answer. It is never the answer. And part of why I, and I'm sure so many of you, are working so hard to prevent Donald Trump from taking power again, is precisely because we don't want to validate the use of violence as a political tool, which Donald Trump has obviously done numerous times,

from promising his supporters that he would pay their legal bills if they beat up protesters, all the way to the events of January 6th. Violence is not the answer. It makes this whole thing more dangerous for everyone, myself included, and it is not why any of us got into this. I've watched the responses to the shooting, and just as sickening as the shooting itself has been the response to it. There have been a number of Republicans who, without skipping a beat, have exploited these events to attack Joe Biden or the Democrats.

Mike Collins, a Republican lawmaker from Georgia, tweeted, Joe Biden sent the order. Marjorie Taylor Green wrote, we are in a battle between good and evil. The Democrats are the party of pedophiles, murdering the innocent, unborn, violence, and bloody, meaningless, and endless wars. The Democrat Party is flat out evil, and yesterday they tried to murder President Trump. J.D. Vance, wrote, Today is not just some isolated incident. 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. And of course, Lauren Bobert posted this. I do believe that Joe Biden is responsible for the shooting today, Kyle Clark. An innocent supporter of President Trump, someone who loved President Trump and was there exercising their right to support him, lost to. their life today, everyone who has called him a fascist, everyone who has called him a threat to democracy, who said that he should be put in a bull's eye, as Joe Biden said. They need to have some very deep reflection tonight before another tragedy like this takes place. First of all,

the Democratic Party and Joe Biden did not try to assassinate Donald Trump. The shooter was a registered Republican. In fact, because that's interesting. convenient for the narrative. Now conservatives are saying stuff like this. Don't read too much into the political affiliation because James Comey, also a registered Republican. Apparently, political affiliation is only exploitable if it fits the Republican narrative. Otherwise, if it doesn't bolster Jesse Waters' claims, then it's suddenly a moot point.

Do you think that Jesse would have been claiming that political affiliation isn't important if he was a registered Democrat? And beyond that, reporters from the Philadelphia Inquirer spoke to classmates of the shooter, and they were very clear about the fact that the kid was a conservative. One passage from the reporting says that a classmate of the shooter recalled a mock debate in which their history professor posed government policy questions and asked students to stand on one side of the classroom or the other to signal their support or opposition for a given proposal.

Quote, the majority of the class were on the liberal side, but Tom, no matter what, always stood his ground on the conservative side. That's still the picture I have of him, just standing alone on one side while the rest of the class was on the other. So I wanted to make that clear right off the bat because the right has a long, long history of scapegoating Democrats for things that Democrats have nothing to do with. Why a conservative would try to assassinate the conservative candidate in this race is beyond me, but certainly had nothing to do with Joe Biden or the left. But to J.D. Vance's tweet, this idea that calling Trump a fascist led to his assassination attempt, let's discuss that. First of all, Donald Trump is a fascist.

That doesn't mean assassinate him, but he is a fascist. He wants to consolidate power into the executive branch. He wants to use the military as a weapon to suppress dissent. He wants an army of loyalists to do his bidding. He wants to be a dictator. He wants to suspend the Constitution. Those are his words, by the way, things that he said. So, yes, he is a fascist.

But Vance has unilaterally decided to reverse engineer a way to blame the left, and that is by pointing to the things that the left is absolutely correct and justified in saying, which is acknowledging the objective reality that Trump is a fascist and deciding that because that's now the cause of the shooting that everyone in the left who said it is suddenly responsible. That's not only insane and dangerous, but it's just a bad faith way to absolve the people who are perpetuating the violence while blaming the people who have long since condemned the violence. It's not the Democrats or Biden who told rally goers again to beat up protesters and that we'd pay for their legal bills. that was Trump. It's not the Democrats or Biden who laughed at Paul Pelosi being bludgeon with a hammer.

That was Trump. It's not the Democrats or Biden who called for military tribunals for Liz Cheney. That was Trump. Wasn't Democrats or Biden who called for General Mark Millie to be executed? That was Trump. It's not the Democrats or Biden who posted a baseball bat photo with Alvin Bragg and threatened death and destruction if he was charged. That was Trump. It's not the Democrats or Biden who reposted images on the two social showing Biden hogtied in the bed of a truck. that was Trump. It's not the Democrats or Biden who laughed off a kidnapping plot against Gretchen Whitmer. That was Trump. We don't want Trump in power because we don't want violence. So let's not

get it twisted. In fact, you want to see the difference on display? Here, for example, is the less reaction to this shooting. AOC. There's no place for political violence, including the horrific incident we just witnessed in Pennsylvania. It is absolutely unacceptable and must be denounced in the strongest terms. My heart goes out to all the victims and I wish the former president a speedy recovery. Chris Murphy. There's no room in America for political violence. We should all condemn what happened today,

and I'm hoping for the health of the former president and everyone else at the rally. And Joe Biden. There's no place in America of this kind of violence for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions. We can't allow this violence to be normalized. Meanwhile, here's how the right reacted

when it's a Democrat who's the victim. Paul Pelosi's bludgeon with a hammer and Don Jr. posts, got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready. Here's Marjor Tiller Green getting her audience to boo Paul Pelosi at a rally. Where Americans are robbed, stabbed, raped, kidnapped, carjacked, and murdered. But the only crime victim you hear about from Democrats in the media is Paul Pelosi. And of course, Trump himself poking fun at Paul Pelosi after he,

was attacked. And we'll stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi who ruined San Francisco. How's her husband doing, by the way, anybody know? And she's against building a wall at our border, even though she has a wall around her house, which obviously didn't do a very good job. So no, both parties are not the same. not pretend that one doesn't immediately and unequivocally condemn violence while the other one revels in it. The only difference is that the pearl clutching on the right only begins when the

violence happens to them. And therein lies the real difference here. The left doesn't want any political violence while the right is fine with it so long as it doesn't impact them. There's also the fact that had the Democrats gotten their way, guns like this wouldn't even be available to the general public. It is the Republicans who block any and all efforts to ban assault weapons like the ones that was used in Pennsylvania. They did it at the federal level when Senate Republicans blocked the legislation and Pennsylvania Republicans to use this state, for example, did it at the state level when a Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania House Committee passed a bill banning the sale of assault weapons against the unanimous opposition of Republicans on that panel,

only for the legislation to be tabled in the Pennsylvania Assembly once it faced opposition from the state's Republican lawmakers and the National Rifle Association, the NRA. In fact, himself signed the bill revoking Obama-era checks for people with mental illness. He wanted mentally ill people to be able to buy guns, not the left, not Joe Biden, but Donald Trump. So again, remember that if Democrats had their way, these guns wouldn't be available for sale, and certainly not to the mentally ill. But Republicans ensured that that wouldn't happen. And so now, a clearly disturbed 20-year-old had access to a weapon that he used to try and assassinate a politician from 150 yards away, all thanks to policies.

backed by the GOP and the very politician whose life was almost taken. I would hope that would serve as a proof point to pass common-sense gun reforms that 90% of this country would agree with, but you and I both know that Republicans aren't interested in doing that. So I'll end with the same message that I started with. Violence is never the answer, and that is precisely why we are working so hard to make sure that Trump and Republicans do not take power in November. It's because we don't want to validate the preferred tool of a party that, for years,

has used it as a cudgel against the left. So while the right may leverage this disgusting act for their own partisan benefit, do not be fooled into thinking that they have the moral high ground. There is only one party that has staunchly, uniformly, and unequivocally condemned violence, and it's not the party of Donald Trump. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen.

Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen.com to learn more.