At a campaign rally in North Carolina on Tuesday, Republican nominee Donald Trump made a comment about the Second Amendment that many people interpreted as an assassination threat against Hillary Clinton. In response to Clinton's stance on gun control, Trump said that the Democratic nominee wanted to "abolish" the Second Amendment. He went one step further, telling the crowd in North Carolina that "if [Clinton] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the 2nd Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know." Like many on the left, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren slammed Trump for these remarks in two straightforward tweets.
In her tweets, Warren called Trump a "pathetic coward" who is resorting to making death threats because "he's losing to a girl." She went on to add that Trump sounded more like a dictator than someone running to "lead the greatest democracy on the planet."
It is entirely unsurprising that Warren chose to respond to Trump in this way. She has been taking on the business mogul for months, denouncing his bigotry as well as his poor business practices. Last month, Warren highlighted these criticisms during her keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention — but while Trump is easily baited, he doesn't seem to find any fault in his behavior.
Despite all of the backlash, Trump's camp has defended his comments. Trump told a CBS affiliate that what he actually meant was that "the Second Amendment people have tremendous power because they are so united." But when he was addressing the audience in North Carolina, he was not discussing the power of voting blocs before the election — rather, he was describing what he thought the country would be like if Clinton was elected.
Given that Trump has previously said that he wouldn't lose supporters even if he were to "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone," it was not so much of a stretch for Warren and others to construe Trump's Second Amendment comment as a death threat. Nevertheless, Trump's campaign maintains that his comments were being incorrectly interpreted. Kellyanne Conway, a Trump senior adviser and pollster, called Warren a "disgrace" in response to her tweets.
In the next few months, it will be extremely important for elected officials like Warren to continue speaking out against Trump, whose campaign has grown increasingly vitriolic and whose rallies have incited calls for violence against Clinton that he has largely let slide.
