A top surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris is being accused of employing deadly rhetoric against former President Donald Trump less than two weeks after the second assassination attempt against him.

Gina Raimondo, the Biden-Harris administration’s commerce secretary, took to MSNBC on Tuesday to denounce “another lie” she claimed Trump has told about her boss. “Like, how did we get here?” she said, suggesting the level of falsities in political discourse has reached an all-time high thanks to Trump. “Let’s extinguish him for good. We have an answer, we have a remarkably talented candidate” in Harris, she went on. Critics pounced on her phrasing as Raimondo’s answer became the latest example of what Trump supporters say is an increasing number of violent repudiations.

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WATCH:

Federal authorities on Monday charged 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh with attempting to assassinate President Trump, the second attempt in as many months. Routh made his intention clear in a letter he wrote to an associate months earlier, and his refrain that “democracy is on the ballot” for why Trump must be executed is one that has been frequently espoused by Vice President Harris and running mate Tim Walz. Despite being nearly killed twice, the targeting of President Trump has failed to curb the nation’s political discourse as it lurches toward the end of a turbulent election season.

On X, commentators were ablaze in denouncing Raimondo, a former Democratic governor of Rhode Island. “This is a declaration of War,” one user wrote. Another added that her use of the word “extinguish” was “intentional” and “no one uses that word in political discourse” otherwise. “Say you want to k•ll him without saying you want to k•ll him,” said a third.

This is a declaration of War.

— BlueCollarPatriot🇺🇸 (@JustinSutliffe) September 25, 2024

That word is intentional. No one uses that word in political discourse.

— Big Fish (@BigFish3000) September 25, 2024

Say you want to k•ll him without saying you want to k•ll him. 😐

— 🆂🅲🅾🆃🆃 (@RandomHeroWX) September 25, 2024

In the run-up to President Trump’s third, and perhaps final, bid for the White House, a litany of criticisms has come back to haunt Democrats after he was nearly killed in the first attempt against his life on July 13th. Almost exactly one year prior, Democratic Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) suggested that Trump “should be shot” on live TV before quickly correcting herself. Trump’s involvement in the classified documents case against him, which has since been dismissed, should “should be terrifying to all Americans, and [Trump] needs to be shot, stopped,” she said at the time.

Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) profusely apologized last year after suggesting that Trump “has to be eliminated” because he is a “threat to democracy.” Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) said she hopes people will “get more confrontational” with Trump if he wins a second term. President Trump last week said the latest attempt on his life was inspired by such statements.

“He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,” Trump said of the gunman. “Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out… These are people that want to destroy our country.”

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