CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem said Tuesday on “News Central” that former President Donald Trump is using the “threat of violence” to rally the support of his people.
Kayyem said, “It’s about to be 2024. We are running into an election period in which violence and the threat of violence are sort of viewed as an extension of our normal democratic differences. This is one of the successes of what Donald Trump has been able to do, is to sort of be kind of casual about violence.”
She continued, “There’s two things. I don’t know how to say it louder, just like everyone needs to brace for this year, 2024 is going to be a year in which elections and the threat of violence overhangs this election for two reasons. One is Trump is not hiding it. I don’t need to pretend both sides here. Potentially, the lead candidate for the GOP, who’s going to get the nomination, is utilizing language and violence in the threat of violence as a way to rally his people to get support, and his party is sort of ignoring it. They’re not condemning it. I think that, then, creates an atmosphere in which violence becomes more permissive.”
Kayyem added, “That’s what’s happening here, this permissive structure. The second is if you guess a nomination, he could win. And then, if there’s a win at the end of 2024, that’s when I don’t know how to. I tend not to have my hair on fire. I don’t know how to explain or curb how the violence unfolds if Donald Trump does become president.”
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