Partly to blame? You think???

Pennsylvania lawmakers: Trump rhetoric at least partly to blame for division

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO

A pair of Pennsylvania congressmen said Monday that President Donald Trump is not blameless when it comes to the rancorous public discourse in America.

Speaking at a POLITICO Playbook Elections event in Philadelphia, retiring GOP Rep. Ryan Costello said the polarized political climate is the result of many variables that are “shaking up the hornet’s nest” but that Trump’s rhetoric “is certainly one of them” for people on both sides of the aisle.

Costello said that for those on the right, Trump is projecting already-existing anger, while the president acts as a trigger for people who are “agitated” on the left.

“In the grand scheme of things, if you were to subsequently ask me, ‘Does he quell or exacerbate?’ I would say he oftentimes exacerbates,” Costello added.

The tone of political rhetoric has come under a harsh spotlight as midterm election campaigns enter their final stretch, and critics have pointed to Trump as a main user of incendiary language that may have emboldened a string of potentially politically motivated violence over the last week.

Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle cautioned that “it’s very hard to draw a straight line” from a person’s rhetoric to events like Saturday’s mass shooting at a synagogue outside Pittsburgh but said Trump stokes division like no other U.S. president has and that “it does play a role.”

“There is no question that this is the most toxic climate in my lifetime,” he said.

The president has rejected accusations that he might have played a role in the shooting, in which 11 people were killed, complaining instead that the media’s “obvious hostility” toward his administration has incited the growing partisan divide.

In the aftermath of the shooting, which was allegedly carried out by a lone gunman targeting Jews, as well as last week’s bomb scare targeting prominent Democrats and Trump critics and allegedly carried out by an ardent supporter of the president, Trump issued calls for unity while also keeping up attacks on his critics.

Trump allies have pointed to last summer’s shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) by a purported supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the comments of Democrats like Hillary Clinton, who has said that the party “cannot be civil” with Republicans until Democrats are back in political power.

But Boyle on Monday said that “it’s a very dangerous time” if Americans can’t participate in a healthy debate of ideas and leave room for compromise.