Rep. Hakeem Jeffries claps back at Trump press secretary, who blamed WHCD shooting on Democrats
TheGrio...
The U.S. House of Representatives Democratic leader called Karoline Leavitt a “disgrace” and a “stone-cold liar.”
U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the Democratic leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, clapped back at White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt after the spokesperson for President Donald Trump blamed him and other Democrats for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting this past weekend.
“The entire Democrat Party has made their pitch to voters across the country that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy, that he is a fascist, and that they compare him to Hitler,” Leavitt said during a White House press briefing on Monday, the same day that 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen was charged with the attempted assassination of Trump. “These are despicable statements that the American people have been consuming for years, and so many mentally perturbed individuals are led to believe these words are truth and then are inspired to act on it.”
Leavitt went on to read statements made by Jeffries and other prominent Democrats.
“Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, just this April, this month, said, ‘We are in an era of maximum warfare everywhere all the time,’” said the press secretary. She continued, “Governor Josh Shapiro said, ‘Heads need to roll within the administration.’ Senator Alex Padilla said people are ‘dying because of fear and terror caused by the Trump administration.’ Senator Elizabeth Warren, President Trump is making the country look like a ‘fascist state.’”
Soon after Leavitt’s remarks, Jeffries, who is likely poised to be elected the first Black speaker of the U.S. House in 2027, should Democrats win back the majority in this November’s midterm elections, slammed the Trump official.
“The so-called White House press secretary, who’s a disgrace, she’s a stone-cold liar, had the nerve to stand up there and read talking points being critical of statements all taken out of context that Democrats have made,” Jeffries told reporters during a press conference.
The top House Democrat said the Trump White House “didn’t have a word to say about what MAGA extremists have said or done.” Jeffries accused Republicans of “providing aid and comfort to violent insurrectionists,” referring to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol committed by a mob of Trump supporters after Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss. The New York congressman noted they “brutally beat police officers.”
Jeffries added, “The president then pardoned those violent rioters, many of whom have gone back into communities across the country to reoffend…one of whom threatened to kill me. He said, ‘Kill the terrorist.’ Where did that language come from?”
The lawmaker also noted that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home was attacked by an arsonist when he, his wife, and children were inside.
“This so-called White House press secretary wants to lecture America and lecture us about civility. Get lost. Clean up your own house before you have anything to say to us about the language that we use,” said Jeffries.
Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist who advises Jeffries and other national Democrats, told theGrio of Leavitt, “I think that the press secretary, unfortunately, suffers from stage four liar-betes, and that has spread throughout the Trump administration, stemming from the president himself.”
Leavitt and several other Trump officials are the “biggest sources of misinformation that the political ecosystem has seen in our lifetimes,” said Seawright, who is the founder of political consulting firm, Blueprint Strategy LLC.
“She’s a pathological liar, and she will say anything or do anything to continue her audition and satisfaction for an audience of one, and that’s Donald Trump,” said Seawright. “There are some who want to pretend like Donald Trump has been no responsibility for all this, but there are others of us who know the truth.”