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Andrea Austria / Media Matters

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Republican convention features speakers who have called for and downplayed political violence

Media outlets should not buy Trumpist spin when many figures who are speaking have advocated violence

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published

Updated

Media outlets covering the RNC convention should not buy the MAGA narrative that messaging has “softened” or that there is any sort of “unity” pivot.

Donald Trump, the former president and Republican nominee for president, reportedly reframed the Republican National Convention on the fly around the theme of “unity” after a shooter targeted him during a rally a few days previously, grazing his ear and killing a bystander. But many of the featured RNC speakers, including Trump himself, have a history of encouraging political violence or downplaying it when it happens to Democrats.

Key among these speakers is former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who is currently scheduled for a prime-time speaking slot before Trump’s speech and has a long history of encouraging conspiracy theories that reportedly inspired multiple mass shootings throughout the country. He was also a primary validator of the lies that led to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as Trump supporters sought to prevent Congress from confirming Joe Biden’s victory, and also aired a campaign of lies about its aftermath. 

But Carlson is far from the only scheduled convention speaker who has validated political violence. Many others, including Republican elected officials and candidates, downplayed the violence of the January 6 insurrection, called for violence against protesters, and in at least one case called for violence against Democrats. 

Case in point, during his speech during the first night of the convention, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) strayed from the supposedly unifying themes by directly accosting the Democratic Party, whose policies he labeled "a clear and present danger to America, to our institutions, our values and our people.”

This post has been updated with additional information.

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  • Ohio Sen. and Trump VP pick J.D. Vance

    • Vance, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, downplayed the violence directed at then-VP Mike Pence during the January 6 insurrection. The Hill reported that in a CNN interview, Vance said: “I’m truly skeptical that Mike Pence’s life was ever in danger” during the January 6 insurrection. During the attack, some people chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” and Pence was evacuated by the Secret Service to a secure location. Vance continued: “I think politics and politics people like to really exaggerate things from time to time.” [The Hill, 5/1/24, 7/15/24]

  • Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton

    • Cotton called for military force to be used against protesters of police brutality during the George Floyd protests: “No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters.” In social media posts, Cotton recommended that U.S. Army units be deployed to end protests: “We need to have zero tolerance.” Merriam-Webster’s Trend Watch explained Cotton’s use of the phrase “no quarter,” saying that it defines the terms “as ‘no pity or mercy —used to say that an enemy, opponent, etc., is treated in a very harsh way.’ … This particular sense of quarter may be defined as ‘merciful consideration of an opponent’ (often specifically refers to ‘the clemency of not killing a defeated enemy’).” [Twitter/X, 6/1/20, 6/1/20; Merriam-Webster, Trend Watch, 6/1/20]
    • Cotton in New York Times op-ed: “Send in the troops.” Cotton wrote that then-President Trump should use the Insurrection Act and send military forces to ensure protesters against police brutality are “subdued,” stating: “One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers. … In these circumstances, the Insurrection Act authorizes the president to employ the military ‘or any other means’ in ‘cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws.’” [The New York Times, 6/3/20]
    • Cotton encouraged vigilante violence, saying he “would encourage most people anywhere that get stuck” by protesters “to take matters in their own hands.” Cotton, specifically talking about people protesting Israeli military strikes against civilians in Gaza by blocking roads, continued: “If something like this happened in Arkansas on a bridge there – let’s just say I think there’d be a lot of very wet criminals that have been tossed overboard, not by law enforcement, but by the people whose road they’re blocking. If they glued their hands to a car or the pavement, well, [it would be] probably pretty painful to have their skin ripped off. But I think that’s the way we’d handle it in Arkansas.” [The Guardian, 4/16/24]
    • Cotton: Police should have been called in to pro-Palestinian protests “the very first day they set up their tents.” He added, “Where were the liberal administrators and liberal politicians sending in the police on the very first day? We should not have tolerated this for a moment.” Many of the police activities against campus protests featured violence against the protesters. [ABC News, 5/5/24; CBS News, 5/4/24; Rolling Stone, 4/30/24]
    • Cotton called for presidential pardons for many convicted of January 6 insurrection charges. Mother Jones reported that “Cotton said people ‘who did not attack a law enforcement officer, [and] who did not damage public property’ on Jan. 6 should be ‘considered’ for a pardon.” [Mother Jones, 6/2/24]

  • Texas Sen. Ted Cruz

    • Cruz portrayed elected Democrats as “barbarians” and military targets to be fought. Rolling Stone reported that during a Conservative Political Action Conference speech in August 2022, Cruz railed against the “power hungry, abusive totalitarian nitwits” of the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress, and said: “It’s like the old Roman Colosseum where you slam on a breastplate and you grab a battle axe and you go fight the barbarians.” Cruz continued: “As they say in the military world, it is a target-rich environment.” [Rolling Stone, 8/6/22]
    • Cruz shared a conspiracy theory downplaying the political motivations of Paul Pelosi’s attacker. The Washington Post reported: “When a right-wing provocateur wagered Sunday that it was ‘absurd’ to ‘paint a hippie nudist from Berkeley as some kind of militant right winger,’ the junior senator from Texas responded Monday, simply: ‘truth.’” The Post explained that Cruz was wrong: “Even when Cruz tweeted, it was clear that David DePape had an extensive online trail indicating he subscribed to views that were in line with the far right.” [The Washington Post, 11/1/22]

  • Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson

    • Johnson downplayed the violence of January 6, repeatedly denying that it was an “armed insurrection.” PolitiFact explained that “within a week of the attack, a dozen guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition were found. In other words, the crowd was armed.” Johnson repeatedly ignored these facts in an effort to downplay the violence that day, saying just weeks after the insurrection: “The fact of the matter is this didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me.” And in October 2022, Johnson said: “To call what happened on January 6 an armed insurrection, I just think is not accurate.” [PolitiFact, 10/10/22]

  • Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt

    • In 2020, Schmitt defended a gun-toting St. Louis couple who menaced Black Lives Matter protesters. In a Fox News interview, then-Missouri Attorney General Schmitt said that charges against the McCloskeys, who waved guns at protesters passing by their property, were “nothing more than [a] political prosecution” and declared that he would work to get them dismissed. (The couple, who appeared as guest speakers at the 2020 Republican National Convention, pleaded guilty to assault and harassment charges but were later pardoned by Gov. Mike Parson.) [FoxNews.com, 7/21/20; ABC News, 8/3/21]

  • Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz

    • Gaetz had a social media post restricted for glorifying violence after he wrote: “Now that we clearly see Antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East?” [The New York Times, 6/1/20] 
    • While next to Trump at the Iowa State Fair, Gaetz said, “We know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, DC.” [Mediaite, 8/12/23]
    • Gaetz referenced violent far-right gang the Proud Boys when he posted that he was “standing back and standing by” at the courthouse where Trump’s New York criminal trial was being held. The Associated Press reported: “The Proud Boys — whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — have used that verbiage since Trump, during a 2020 campaign debate, said: ‘Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.’” [The Associated Press, 5/16/24]

  • Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

    • Greene repeatedly endorsed using violence against Democrats. CNN reported that “Greene repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress. … In one post, from January 2019, Greene liked a comment that said ‘a bullet to the head would be quicker’ to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In other posts, Greene liked comments about executing FBI agents who, in her eyes, were part of the ‘deep state’ working against Trump.” [Media Matters, 2/2/21]
    • Greene praised militia members as people who can protect the country from “a tyrannical government.” In 2018, Greene gave a speech after various militia members appeared on stage at a rally in Washington, D.C. She praised the militia members as “the very definition of our Second Amendment. Because when our government gets to a place where it’s a tyrannical government, we’re guaranteed the right to bear arms and make a state militia so that they do not run us over.” [Media Matters, 2/2/21]
    • Greene called for vigilante violence against trans people. On conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ radio show, Greene said that if she had a daughter and she had a trans camp counselor, “my husband would’ve beat him into the ground, and then he’d be in jail. But this is exactly how we need to stand up against this stuff.” Greene continued: “We have to draw the line in the sand and say we are not willing to cross it. This is such perversion.” [Media Matters, 2/23/22]
    • Greene said that “the only way you get your freedoms back is it’s earned with the price of blood.” Mother Jones reported that in an October 2020 video, Greene “warned ominously about fending off ‘socialists’ like Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, claiming they would confiscate Americans’ guns. ‘If this generation doesn’t stand up and defend freedom, it’s gone,’ Greene said, addressing viewers. ‘And once it’s gone, freedom doesn’t come back by itself. The only way you get your freedoms back is it’s earned with the price of blood.’” [Media Matters, 2/2/21]
    • Greene said if she had organized the January 6 insurrection, “we would have won” and “it would’ve been armed.” Many of the insurrectionists were, in fact, armed. Greene later said she was making a “sarcastic joke.” [ABC News, 12/12/22]
    • Greene defended conspiracy theories about Paul Pelosi’s attacker. After then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul was attacked and David DePape charged in the incident, The Washington Post reported: “The Georgia Republican defended the Paul Pelosi conspiracy theories Monday morning while citing Pelosi’s supposedly having referred to DePape as his ‘friend.’” It continued: “There remains no evidence Pelosi actually knew DePape, much less that they were friends, and there is plenty to dispute it.” [The Washington Post, 11/1/22]

  • New York Rep. and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik

    • Stefanik defended the January 6 insurrectionists who have been charged and/or convicted of crimes, labeling them “January 6th hostages.” The Hill reported: “‘I have concerns about the treatment of January 6th hostages,’ Stefanik told NBC when asked if those who stormed the Capitol should be held responsible to the full extent of the law. ‘We have a rule in Congress of oversight over our treatment of prisoners. And I believe that we’re seeing the weaponization of the federal government against not just President Trump, but we’re seeing it against conservatives.’” [The Hill, 1/7/24]

  • Texas Gov. Greg Abbott

    • In a tacit endorsement of vigilante killings, Abbott pardoned a far-right killer who murdered a Black Lives Matter protester. Following a campaign by right-wing media, the Texas governor pardoned Daniel Perry, who had been convicted of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester after fantasizing about killing such protesters. [Vox, 5/17/24; Media Matters, 4/12/23]

  • Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

    • While he was campaigning for president, DeSantis said he would “slit the throats” of federal employees. When asked if he regretted that language, DeSantis said he did not, and claimed “people knew it was a figure of speech.” [The Hill, 11/2/23]
    • DeSantis repeatedly called for killing people crossing the southern border without authorization. NBC News reported that DeSantis said “you absolutely can use deadly force” against people crossing the border who “have hostile intent, because you’re obviously running drugs.” He also said: “If the cartels are cutting through the border wall, trying to run product into this country, they’re going to end up stone-cold dead as a result of that bad decision. And if you do that one time, you are not going to see them mess with our wall ever again.” As NBC News explained, “it’s not clear exactly how officers would be able to tell exactly who was a drug smuggler and who was not.” [NBC News, 6/26/23]

  • North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson

    • Robinson said mass shootings were “karma” due to the legality of abortion and belittled mass shooting survivors. Following an August 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, Robinson said mass shootings were “karma” due to the legality of abortion, adding: “When you spill that innocent blood, that blood is going to come back as a stain on you and it's going to come home to roost.” He then said that progressive activists “have nobody to blame but themselves and the policies that they've been pushing that devalue human life across the country.” Following the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Robinson called the survivors “spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN,” “spoiled little bastards,” and “media prosti-tots.” [Media Matters, 5/12/23; CNN, 5/9/23]
    • Robinson called for violence to settle political issues: “Some folks need killing!” The New Republic reported that during a speech at a church in June of this year, Robinson “appeared to endorse lethal violence against these unnamed enemies, particularly on the left” when he ranted: “Some folks need killing! It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity! When you have wicked people doing wicked things, torturing and murdering and raping. It’s time to call out, uh, those guys in green and go have them handled. Or those boys in blue and have them go handle it.” [The New Republic, 7/5/24]

  • Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake

    • Lake mocked the attack on Paul Pelosi during a campaign event. NBC News reported that Lake “made light of the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband in remarks at a campaign event Monday, drawing laughter from the audience.” During the event, she remarked: “Nancy Pelosi, well, she’s got protection when she’s in D.C. — apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection.” [NBC News, 10/31/22]
    • Lake repeatedly defended January 6 insurrectionists during her political campaigns. The Arizona Republic reported that Lake “has issued a flurry of congratulations and sympathy towards participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.” It also reported that she “has suggested that prosecution of Jan. 6 participants is politically motivated,” and that “she struck a similar tone while running for governor in 2022, telling one participant he did nothing wrong. That man was sentenced to three years of probation after he encouraged others to ‘go, go, go’ into the Capitol building and take a police officer’s shield.” [The Arizona Republic, 12/17/23]
    • Lake repeatedly encouraged supporters to arm themselves to settle political issues. In June 2023, Lake responded to one of Trump’s multiple indictments by saying, “If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me. And I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA. That’s not a threat – that’s a public service announcement.” In April 2024, Lake told her supporters: “The next six months is going to be intense. We’re going to strap on our seatbelt. We’re going to put on our helmet — or your Kari Lake ball cap. We are going to put on the armor of God. And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case.” [The Guardian, 6/12/23; USA Today, 4/17/24]

  • Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno

    • Moreno downplayed the violence of the January 6 insurrection. The Daily Beast reported that Moreno “has called Jan. 6 defendants ‘political prisoners,’ once said ‘don’t ever use the word insurrection,’ and shared a post from a right-wing Twitter account that condemned the Department of Justice for prosecuting people who were inside the Capitol for ‘two minutes.’” [The Daily Beast, 8/17/23]

  • Vivek Ramaswamy, former presidential candidate

    • Ramaswamy repeatedly downplayed the January 6 insurrection and dismissed political violence against Democrats. During his campaign for the GOP nomination, Ramaswamy claimed that the January 6 insurrection was an “inside job” and a case of “government entrapment,” and he suggested that insurrectionists were “targets of politicized federal prosecutions.” Ramaswamy also downplayed the kidnapping plot against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, claiming that the Trump supporters arrested in that case were also entrapped. [CNN, 12/13/23; The Dispatch, 9/15/23]

  • Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA

    • Kirk has repeatedly claimed that conservatives are being provoked into violence. During a 2021 event in Idaho, an audience member asked Kirk: “When do we get to use the guns? … I mean, literally, where's the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?” Kirk replied that it would be “playing into all their plans” because they “are trying to make you do something that will be violent that will justify a takeover of your freedoms and liberties.” In a 2023 interview with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Kirk said: “If we, as the figures in the media, the people that have audiences, aren't clear about the proper course of action, that this is gonna get wildly out of control. In a way that people will act you know, I don't want them to act violently. I don't. I'm trying to preach peace as much as possible. But … it's almost like they're being provoked, and I don’t like that.” In another 2023 instance, Kirk said to his audience: “They would love nothing more than for people to act uncharacteristic. They need to try to incite you to right-wing violence to justify their mass takeover of the country.” And in July 2023, Kirk said “the left” wants “another January 6,” and “they have been preempting us and preconditioning us with domestic violent extremism and right-wing violence.” [Media Matters, 10/27/21, 8/17/23, 4/3/23, 7/28/23]