The alleged death threat against House Democratic Leader
Fears returned to the forefront after New York State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter, 34-year-old Christopher Moynihan, this week after he allegedly threatened to kill Jeffries.
“Threats of violence will not stop us from showing up, standing up and speaking up for the American people,” Jeffries said in a statement Tuesday, thanking law enforcement for “their swift and decisive action to apprehend a dangerous individual who made a credible death threat against me with every intention to carry it out.”
However, the threat against the top House Democrat did little to cool partisan tensions between party leaders in Congress that have been spiking throughout the shutdown.
Speaker
“I will tell you this, the violence on the left is far more prevalent than the violence on the right,” Johnson also said. “Don’t make me go through the list,” the speaker added, arguing that “the assassination culture that’s been advanced now — this is the left in almost every case that is advancing this and not the right.”
Ramped-Up Rhetoric
Johnson branded himself “Mad Mike” last week as the shutdown continued with no end in sight. The Louisiana Republican, a devout Christian who’s inextricably linked to
Jeffries has also — despite his own calls to de-escalate tensions — ramped up criticisms of Republicans in recent days, and the New York Democrat’s claws came out when responding to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s criticisms of his party last week.
“She’s sick; out of control,” Jeffries said of Leavitt. “And I’m not sure whether she’s just demented, ignorant, a stone-cold liar, or all of the above.”
The two House leaders’ tones match the escalating hostility between congressional Republicans and Democrats as the shutdown drags into its 21st day, making it the longest full lapse in government funding in US history. Only one longer (partial) shutdown occurred during Trump’s first term, lasting 34 days.
“Ordinary citizens tend to reflect the ideas and actions that their leaders express,” said Marc Hetherington, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has researched partisanship. “So to the extent that our political leaders are using dehumanizing or violent rhetoric, or depictions of that in their social media feeds, the public are going to become desensitized to those things.”
Ignored Calls For Change
The shutdown has made Congress’ partisan hostilities worse, with House and Senate lawmakers from opposing parties verbally sparring in the hallways over whose fault it is. But it hardly created the problem.
“Unfortunately, that’s a pendulum that’s been swinging in the wrong direction,” House Majority Leader
“Hopefully, at some point, it starts getting back to a normal place,” Scalise added. “But we weren’t there before the shutdown. And we just hope that at some point soon we try to get back to that.”
The noticeable change in tone follows two high-profile examples of political violence — the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the killing of a Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband by a man whose list of targets included multiple US House Democrats.
Both incidents prompted Democratic and Republican lawmakers to call to tone down their rhetoric in Washington. Johnson urged leaders to “turn down the temperature” after the Kirk shooting, and Jeffries called on Trump to “take a page from Ronald Reagan’s playbook when he brought the temperature down.”
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