Laura Fink spars with Guy Benson as he says Trump leads ‘scorecard’ on assassination attempts
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: During a heated Fox News panel discussion on Sunday, September 22, political analyst Laura Fink challenged contributor Guy Benson for his use of "simple tropes" after he asserted that former president Trump was leading a “scorecard” on assassination attempts.
Benson's comments followed recent threats against Trump.
The former president survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. More recently, on September 15, a second assassination attempt was made on Trump while he was playing golf at his club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Guy Benson defends Donald Trump’s rhetoric, claims media bias
Guy Benson argued that Democrats were quick to criticize Donald Trump’s harsh rhetoric against Vice President Kamala Harris while failing to acknowledge the broader context.
“What Trump is doing here is using the left's standards against them,” he stated.
"Whenever there's any pretense whatsoever or any possibility of blaming the political right or conservative rhetoric for any sort of act of violence or threat, we get lectures about toning down the rhetoric and a climate of hate and dangerous words," he said.
"And when the violence or threats flow the other way, the media generally does not apply that to the left."
“If it's going to be tied to words or rhetoric, it is always the Republicans' fault, no matter who the target might be,” he insisted.
Laura Fink highlights Democrats’ condemnation of threats
Laura Fink countered by pointing out that Democrats have condemned threats against Donald Trump, emphasizing the dangers of creating a false equivalency.
“I think you want to be careful here, though, because creating a false equivalency, when you look at a man who has built his reputation on division and incendiary language and in fact sometimes overt references to violence, this is not you know, you don't need a fact checker to look this up,” she noted.
Guy Benson responded, stating, “Only one side's rhetoric gets blamed for things like what we've seen now twice in the last three months.”
He highlighted what he described as a “scorecard” of two assassination attempts against Trump versus none against Democrats.
“But what we have seen, if we're looking at a scorecard here, is two assassination attempts against Donald Trump, zero, thank goodness, against the Democratic ticket,” he said.
Laura Fink challenges Guy Benson’s scorecard argument
Laura Fink interrupted, questioning the validity of this measure.
“Is that the measure though, really? If that was the measure, given the number of threats, given the tenor, given the tone, given the repeated statements over and over again, inciting violence, including at the Capitol and against election workers,” she stated.
“I'm just wondering what your measure is here, because I just don't think it's as simple as all that. I think reducing it to those sort of simple tropes, I think it doesn't advance the conversation.”
She concluded, “If we want to stop political violence, we have to look at it holistically.”
