CNN contributor catches herself reflexively going back to violent anti-Trump language

Former Biden White House communications director and CNN contributor Kate Bedingfield proved unable Monday to refrain from employing the kind of violent rhetoric that many suspect originally set the stage for the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

Bedingfield was on a panel commenting on the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee when CNN talking head Anderson Cooper showed a clip from President Joe Biden's recent interview with NBC News' Lester Holt.

In the clip, Biden complained that the press had broken with tradition and finally discussed his decrepitude rather than continuing to lay into his opponent.

"Why don't you guys ever talk about the 18 to 28 lies he told?" Biden asked Holt. "Where are you on this? Why didn't the press ever talk about that? 28 times. ... I had a bad, bad night. I wasn't feeling well at all. And I had been — well, I'm not going to make any — I screwed up."

'That was not the phrase that I meant.'

Cooper subsequently wondered why Biden had himself proven incapable of pushing back against Trump's supposed lies during the debate, then noted recent polling that "does not look good" for Biden.

Bedingfield seized upon Cooper's comments as an opportunity to talk Democratic strategy, emphasizing that Biden has made clear he is "not going to step down."

"So, at some point Democrats have to decide that they want to try to win this election and turn their fire on Donald Trump," added Bedingfield.

Bedingfield immediately realized that her natural choice of militaristic language with regard to Trump was imprudent, especially just days after a radical literally turned his fire on the former president.

"I shouldn't have said 'turn their fire.' I apologize," Bedingfield said as the other panelists chuckled amongst themselves. "That was not the phrase that I meant. They need to turn their focus on Donald Trump."

The "War Room" account for the Trump campaign highlighted Bedingfield's comments, noting, "Former top Biden staffer and current CNN contributor Kate Bedingfield just said Democrats need to 'turn their fire on Donald Trump' — days after a deranged lunatic shot him in a failed assassination attempt. Democrats just can't help themselves."

Bedingfield replied, "I immediately caught myself and apologized — it was intended as a turn of phrase to mean focus on him, but I agree it's absolutely inappropriate in this moment."

Former Acting Director of U.S. National Intelligence Richard Grenell clapped back, writing, "Not only in this moment."

While Bedingfield apparently managed to keep from publicly slipping up for at least one full day following the rally shooting, some of her fellow travelers alternatively wasted no time vilifying Trump.

The New York Times' print edition of Sunday Opinion ran an op-ed Sunday condemning the wounded Republican, stating in bold on a dark, full page depicting a silhouette of Trump's head, "He failed the tests of leadership and betrayed America. Voters must reject him."

'We urge voters to see the dangers of a second Trump term.'

The op-ed from the Times' editorial board, first published digitally last week, claimed that Trump is a man "as demonstrably unsuited for the office of president as any to run in the long history of the Republic, a man whose values, temperament, ideas and language are directly opposed to so much of what has made this country great."

According the piece advanced by the Times in print just hours after Trump was shot and after his supporter, the heroic former fire chief Corey Comperatore, was murdered, "He has demonstrated an utter lack of respect for the Constitution, the rule of law and the American people. Instead of a cogent vision for the country’s future, Mr. Trump is animated by a thirst for political power: to use the levers of government to advance his interests, satisfy his impulses and exact retribution against those who he thinks have wronged him."

The Times' editorial board added, "We urge voters to see the dangers of a second Trump term clearly and to reject it."

Kathleen Kingsbury, the Times' opinions editor, suggested in an essay that "there is no connection between our prior decision to run this editorial package in print and Saturday’s incident — we would have changed our plans if we could have," reported the New York Post.

While the timing of the Times' op-ed may have been accidental, MSNBC analyst David Corn's vilification of Trump Sunday in the leftist blog Mother Jones was fully intentional. Corn stressed, "Only one of the candidates in the 2024 contest incited a violent assault on the US Capitol to overturn an election and still threatens American democracy. What happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, does not change that."

CNN commentator, former Jan. 6 committee member, and Biden booster Adam Kinzinger wrote roughly 24 hours after Trump was shot, "The Trump campaign and surrogates will try to intimidate Biden supporters from going after the former President politically. Do not let up. Trump is a threat to democracy and he must be stopped."

Sunday afternoon, Vox published an article entitled, "Yes, it's still fair to call Trump a threat to democracy."

"In the wake of this weekend's assassination attempt, however, some have called on partisans to do more than this: They have suggested that we must not merely condemn violence, but also avoid rhetoric that could hypothetically inspire it," wrote Vox's Eric Levitz.

Levitz figured he'd instead double down, writing, "Donald Trump really does present a threat to the norms of liberal democracy and the welfare of millions of US residents."

Levitz was joined in attacking Trump over the weekend by former George W. Bush speechwriter and Atlantic editor David Frum.

Frum wrote, "Fascist movements are secular religions. Like all religions, they offer martyrs as their proof of truth. ... The Trump movement now improves on that: The leader himself will be the martyr in chief, his own blood the basis for his bid for power and vengeance."

"Those who stand against Trump and his allies must find the will and the language to explain why these crimes, past and planned, are all wrong, all intolerable — and how the gunman and Trump, at their opposite ends of a bullet's trajectory, are nonetheless joined together as common enemies of law and democracy," added Frum.

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