President Donald Trump early Thursday morning retweeted a video of one of his supporters declaring that Trump’s political opponents ought to be dead.
“Thank you Cowboys,” Trump tweeted with the video posted by Cowboys for Trump, which shows Couy Griffin, the group’s leader, ranting about Democrats in violent terms during a gathering at a New Mexico church on May 17.
“I’ve come to a place where I’ve come to a conclusion where the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat,” Griffin said as the crowd cheered.
The Trump supporter insisted he wasn’t talking “in a physical sense.”
“And I can already see the videos getting edited where says I want to go murder Democrats,” he said. “I say that in the political sense because the Democrat policy and agenda is anti-American right now.”
Griffin repeated again that “politically speaking,” the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat because “we need to have the majorities in the House and the Senate.”
Thank you Cowboys. See you in New Mexico! https://t.co/aCRJeskUA8
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2020
Before Trump retweeted the video, Griffin told the Daily Beast on Tuesday that he “could’ve chosen a different verbiage.”
“I guess I need to be more careful when I choose the words that I speak,” he said. “But you know, it’s just so hypocritical of the left how they’re blowing this up, like I’m some hate-speech murderer.”
Yet Griffin also stated that “there’s not an option” that violence is “not on the table” as he and other right-wingers protest against Democratic governors’ stay-at-home orders amid COVID-19.
White House spokesperson Judd Deere dismissed concerns that Trump was advocating violence against his political enemies.
“The President and the entire administration condemn violence in all forms as we have stated many times,” he said in an emailed statement to TPM.
This post has been updated to include the White House’s comment.
