Bellingham Mayor Kim Lund and Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu joined a litany of politicians state and nationwide in condemning political violence following an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday, July 13.
Trump was shot in the ear and 50-year-old Corey Comperatore was killed during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The suspected shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was also killed. The motive is still unknown.
In a Monday, July 15 city council meeting, Lund quoted President Joe Biden’s recent statement on the assassination attempt: “There is no place in America for political violence, no exceptions.”
“As we move further into this election season, my plea for our community is that we turn toward and not from our democratic ideals,” Lund said. “Let us embrace the complexity and nuance of the work before us. The work before us as a nation, as a state and as a city. Let us avoid oversimplification and a drift to extremes.”
Sidhu said in a statement Monday that his first priority as county executive is to address local issues, but that “we are connected to our national politics and federal government.”
“I have always reiterated that there is much more that unites us than divides us,” he continued. “I would ask that we all take time to reflect and refocus on our shared values as Americans before the party politics and lower the divisive rhetoric for the sake of our nation.”
Sidhu noted in his statement that he previously condemned the Jan. 6 insurrection as an “existential threat to our democracy and our traditions of democratic process.”
State leaders also weighed in, with Gov. Jay Inslee posting to X on July 13 that violence never has a place in politics.
“I hope whoever perpetrated today’s attack is held to account. Our thoughts are with all who attended the former president’s event, and I join the many others who are expressing gratitude for the Secret Service and first responders,” Inslee said in the post to X, formerly Twitter.
Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the nation must come together. “I condemn this act of violence against former President Donald Trump in the strongest possible terms,” Ferguson posted to X on July 13.
Congressional leaders representing Washington state also spoke out, with Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray denouncing political violence, also in posts to X.
Murray posted a full statement Monday, July 15 saying “we must condemn all forms of political violence – we cannot denounce one and disregard another.” The statement called out Trump’s incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection, in which he “brazenly directed far-right extremists to ‘stand back and standby.'”
“If we want to protect our democracy for the future, we can only do it using our voices and our votes — and we have to be clear-eyes and unwavering in calling out leaders who willfully and purposefully incite political violence,” she continued.
On X, Rep. Rick Larsen quoted a CBS News video of President Joe Biden speaking Sunday on the attempted assassination, writing that Biden was “doing presidential things” by “calling for unity, directing an independent investigation of the incident, requiring a review of security at the GOP convention, [and] speaking from Oval Office tonight.”
Audra Anderson is CDN’s assistant editor; reach her at audraanderson@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 115.
