Mayor Eric Adams on Sunday pleaded for the nation to tone down the inflammatory rhetoric that he says led a gunman to make an attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump, grazing his ear but killing one rallygoer and critically injuring two others.
“What happens when a 20-year-old reaches a point where they believe the only way to settle their political differences and disputes is to use an AR-15 or AK-47 or any other form of handgun or weapon? That sends a terrible message,” Adams, a Democrat, said at a press conference at City Hall on Sunday with Joe Borelli, the top Republican leader in the City Council, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, among others. “Political violence is not how we settle how we peacefully transfer power in this country.”
The mayor called the attempted assassination, caught on numerous television cameras and cell phone videos, a “chilling, chilling visualization,” and said he and those at the press conference would send out an open letter calling for an end to political violence.
The motives and political views of the suspected gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, have not been established. Crooks, who was on a rooftop outside Trump’s rally venue in Butler, PA, was killed by Secret Service agents who returned fire.
Mayor Adams contended, as he has in the past, that social media algorithms are leading young people down the path of political radicalization.
“The rhetoric has got to cool,” said Borelli, the minority leader in the City Council. “Let’s use our anger and our political differences as the founders intended, by having debates, by standing on our soapboxes, by offering different ideas, and by encouraging people to vote.”
But when asked for examples of heated rhetoric following the attempted slaying of the 45th president, Sharpton implicitly nodded to various Republican officeholders who have insinuated Democrats incited the violence, though he wouldn’t name anyone specific.
“Violence is wrong, no matter who you oppose,” said Sharpton. “We must have a nation that celebrates the diversity of our views and the democracy of our decisions. We cannot settle our political differences with bullets, we settle them with ballots.”
