On Tuesday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports,” Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) responded to a question on if there is a rising issue with left-wing political violence by saying, “No. I think there’s political violence on both sides, and one is not greater than the other.” He also stated that “President Trump has lowered the bar in politics. … And the solution is to clean it up on both sides, and for both sides to agree that it’s a problem with everyone, but that’s not what’s happening right now. There’s just a blame game that continues, and we need to stop it.”
Host Elizabeth Vargas asked, “There is a lot of focus right now on political speech. The Trump administration has said that Democrats are responsible for these attempts on President Trump’s life, the third just this past weekend, the House speaker also criticized the language. House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) fired back, saying, ‘Clean up your own house’. The reality is, that there was just another attempt on President Trump’s life, the third one in two years, and statistics do show that, in 2025, for the first time, there was more political violence from the left than from the right. There does seem to be a rising issue with political violence from the left. Do you agree?”
Subramanyam answered, “No. I think there’s political violence on both sides, and one is not greater than the other. And if Democrats are all responsible for any threats on President Trump’s life, then he’s responsible for the person who threatened my office and my life. So, the reality is this is an issue on both sides. It’s going to take a bipartisan solution, and what’s not helpful is actually blaming the other side every time an incident like this happens, it just fans the flames of violence even more.”
Vargas then said, “It doesn’t help, though, on the left, when you have people like Hasan Piker, who has been embraced by many elected Democrats, who says some outrageous things on his social media platform. Part of the problem is these social media platforms, these social media stars who say and do things that most people would never dream of saying and doing in polite life just a few years ago.”
Subramanyam responded, “Yeah. President Trump has lowered the bar in politics. That’s the reality. Over the past eight years, he’s lowered the bar. And so, we are where we are right now. And he has incited violence. He was impeached for inciting violence on January 6. And so, that’s where we are right now in our politics. And the solution is to clean it up on both sides, and for both sides to agree that it’s a problem with everyone, but that’s not what’s happening right now. There’s just a blame game that continues, and we need to stop it.”
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