George Stephanopoulos sure had a moment this weekend, and it was one for the books. The longtime Democrat, who cut his teeth in the Clinton administration, couldn’t contain his outrage when House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that extreme rhetoric from the Democratic Party might be fueling some of the threats against Donald Trump. In an interview that quickly turned into a verbal tug-of-war, Stephanopoulos seemed more interested in defending his party’s reputation than in addressing the underlying issue: a growing climate of political hostility that has led to some very real and dangerous consequences.
The context for this clash? There have been a couple of assassination attempts against Trump in recent months, including a July incident where a man shot him in the ear and another arrest in September involving a suspect with a long history of Democratic donations. So when Donald Trump and his son pointed out that these attackers had ties to the left, Stephanopoulos lost it, accusing the Trumps of trying to pin the attempts on the entire Democratic Party.
“Is it right for the president and his family to suggest that Democrats are behind the effort to assassinate him?” Stephanopoulos asked, barely keeping the frustration out of his voice. House Speaker Mike Johnson, cool as ever, responded with a dose of reality: “I don’t think they’re saying that the Democrat Party tried an assassination attempt.”
He then pointed out what many on the right have been saying for years—that the constant drumbeat of extreme rhetoric against Trump has real-world consequences. It’s not exactly controversial to suggest that when prominent Democrats label a political opponent as a “threat to democracy” and a danger to the republic, it can embolden unhinged individuals to take matters into their own hands.
“I think what they’re alluding to is what we’ve all been saying,” he continued. “They have got to turn the rhetoric down. For years now, the leading Democrats in this country, the highest elected officials, and the current nominee for president have gone out and said that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. That the republic will end if he’s re-elected.”
“It’s absolute nonsense,” he continued. “And they have incited dangerous people to do dangerous things. The rhetoric has. I think that is a fact that’s objective that everybody can agree to. We do need to turn the volume down.”
But that was enough to send Stephanopoulos into another round of indignation. He demanded to know if Johnson actually backed Trump’s statements as if it were some kind of national scandal. Johnson, for his part, wasn’t about to be browbeaten. He emphasized that what’s really at play here is the never-ending war of words from Democrats, targeting Trump since he announced his run in 2016. “The lawfare is unprecedented. They have attacked him in every single way,” Johnson said, hitting back at the narrative that Democrats have simply been defending democracy. “People have had enough of it.”
Of course, that only made Stephanopoulos dig in deeper. He accused Johnson of “repeating the charge,” as though he were revealing some grand conspiracy, rather than acknowledging the obvious fact that Democrats have been running a scorched-earth campaign against Trump for years. But Johnson wasn’t about to waste time on word games. He called out the hypocrisy in play, noting that if they really wanted to parse inflammatory comments, there would be “pages and pages of crazy comments by the leading Democrats in this country.”
The House Speaker then tried to shift the conversation to the more pressing challenges America faces—like economic instability, border security, and global conflicts. But Stephanopoulos wasn’t ready to let go of his crusade just yet. He kept pressing Johnson to denounce the remarks as if that would somehow change the reality on the ground.
It’s a classic move by the media: get caught up in semantics and sound bites while sidestepping the bigger issue. Here, that issue is the fact that Democratic leaders have been whipping up hysteria against Trump for years, and it’s hardly a stretch to say that their rhetoric has had a dangerous influence. But instead of addressing the atmosphere they’ve helped create, folks like Stephanopoulos are more interested in scoring points and defending their side.
So here we are: Stephanopoulos spends precious minutes trying to put Johnson on the defensive over Trump’s remarks while the Speaker tries to steer the conversation toward real solutions for the American people. In the end, all we’re left with is another glaring example of the media’s selective outrage and the endless deflection from those who don’t want to face up to the consequences of their own words.
You can watch Trump’s full speech here: