The Cable News Cabal Normalizes Political Violence

For the second time in three months, Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt, but this time the Secret Service was able to subdue the gunman before he fired off a shot. But this hasn’t alleviated any of the fears about political violence in this country. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

For the second time in three months, Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt. But this time, the Secret Service was able to subdue the gunman before he fired a shot. But this hasn't alleviated any of the fears about political violence in this country. It's getting worse and we're acting like there's nothing to it. Like this is okay. Like this is normal. It's not normal, ladies and gentlemen. I've got Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins with me to talk about it. The most disturbing thing I gotta tell you as I read these stories is the idiots, these talking head idiots on cable news, basically cable news, whether it's Fox, whether it's CNN, MSNBC, hell, now it's gotten into traditional corporate media. This ain't a big thing. This is nothing to it. He was 500 yards away. He was five football fields away. He only took one shot. It's like the same BS we heard when Trump was almost shot in the head. Okay. We've got, whether you like the guy, I'm not voting for Trump. Let me just, no way I'm voting for the guy. But we're talking about an important part of democracy here. When you have these idiots, these talking heads that show up on the scene and say, there's nothing to this, there's nothing to see here. It's infuriating to me. And not only that, it is such a threat to the Democratic process in this country. We don't kill people who we disagree with

Exactly. Look, I don't disagree with you on any of that at all. And I do think that obviously this time was different because the Secret Service was paying attention. Had they not been paying attention, it wouldn't have mattered if it was 500 yards away, 200, 150, because he would've kept getting closer. The Secret Service through almost a miracle you could call it, saw the barrel of a gun sticking out from a bush. I wouldn't recognize that. And because they did, they were able to get him. He ran, they chased him down. You had the local cops helping as well. But to me, part of this story that is driving me crazy, the more we learn about this guy is this is somebody that should not have been a free citizen in this country. This is a man that should have been locked behind bars, at least as early as the nineties, possibly going back to the 1980s. When you listen to the police in North Carolina where he lived tell the stories about, oh yeah, we had an armed standoff with him this time. We had another armed standoff with him here. He had weapons of mass destruction.

Never spent one day in jail. Has never been to jail one day for any of this stuff. And all the idiots, the talking head idiots on the cable cabal is what it's become, a cable cabal of talking idiots get on the scene and say, oh, well this is, just crazy statements. Like, if I have to hear Joy Reid use the word existential threat one more time, all the talking heads, everything's an existential threat. He's Hitler. He's going to destroy democracy. He's never gonna leave if we elect him President. That has an effect whether we want to agree with it or not. Again, I am not voting for the guy. I think he's a nutcase, but this kind of talk that's accepted by just run of the mill Democrats who say, this is the new norm. And it's okay for people like Wallace or Joy Reid to go on the air and equate him to Hitler. And if he's elected that we're gonna lose democracy, that he won't leave office if he's there. I mean, I could go on forever. And we want to say this is no big deal? This isn't important? 25 years ago, if there had been an assassination attempt on a past president or a presidential candidate, this place would be going crazy. Tune on MSNBC right now. Tune on CNN. See how many times they try to downplay this, like it ain't a problem. It's a hell of a problem. It's a fundamental part of democracy.