White House charges Vance with making 'dangerous' remarks about Harris
The White House is now claiming that remarks made by U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) about Vice President Kamala Harris are "dangerous."
Reuters reports that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made the claim about Vance's comments during her press briefing on Tuesday.
First, we will take a look at what Vance said, then we will look at the White House's response.
The big question is whether Vance's statements really are "dangerous," or whether the Biden-Harris White House is merely labeling as dangerous statements that Democrats do not want to hear.
Here is what Vance had to say
Vance, of course, has a higher profile than ever these days because he has been chosen to be former President Donald Trump's running mate in the 2024 presidential election.
Regarding Trump, the big news item of the past week was the second assassination attempt on his life. This time, unlike the first assassination attempt, Trump was not injured in the incident.
What this latest assassination attempt has done is refocus attention on those things that may have caused it, including the rhetoric used against Trump by members of the political left.
Trump has alleged that the left's rhetoric did play a role in this latest assassination attempt, and Vance would seem to agree.
While calling for the Democrats to "tone down" their rhetoric, Vance said:
I know it’s popular on a lot of corners of the left to say that we have a both sides problem. And I’m not going to say we’re always perfect. I’m not going to say that conservatives always get things exactly right. But you know, the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that we have — no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months. I’d say that’s pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric, and needs to cut this crap out.
That's 'dangerous'
Now, the White House, via Jean-Pierre, is alleging that Vance's statement is "dangerous."
She said:
[W]hen you have that type of language out there, it's dangerous, it's dangerous because people look up to that particular national leader, and they listen to you when you are a national leader, and when you make comments like that, all it does is create -- or opens an opportunity for people to listen to you and potentially take you very seriously.
Jean-Pierre added, "It's dangerous to have that type of rhetoric out there."
The White House press secretary went on to claim that, in contrast to Vance and other Republicans, Harris and President Joe Biden have been consistent in "condemning any type of political violence."
Whether or not Harris and Biden have made such a condemnation, the fact remains that the rhetoric against Trump has not been "toned down" by the Democrats.