MSNBC Pundit Claims Rhetoric Around Trump Raid Creates ‘Great Opportunity’ for ‘Foreign Power’ to Push Violence

Zachary LeemanAug 9th, 2022, 4:59 pm
 

The alarm bells have been ringing at MSNBC over online violent rhetoric following the FBI’s raid of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property. Clint Watts, an MSNBC contributor and former FBI agent, even warned on Tuesday that a “foreign power” could take advantage of the outrage and push someone towards violence.

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell highlighted messages from Trump supporters on Tuesday, including a tweet from conservative comedian Steven Crowder saying, “tomorrow is war” following the raid, as well as Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) saying the FBI needs to be smashed into a million pieces.

Commenting on those and other messages, Watts argued the more “violent rhetoric” there is, the greater the threat risk.

“When you look at the violent rhetoric, the more violent rhetoric there is, the more the chance of what’s known Stochastic terrorism where the larger the audience, the larger the crowd, the higher the number of threats, the more probable it is that a random actor, a lone actor will actually reach and pursue violence through these auspices,” he claimed.

Watts extended his prediction of a potential threat by claiming China, Russia, or Iran could influence people online and push them towards violence.

“We’ve seen in the case of the Covid -19 lockdowns, January 6, election 2020, whether it’s Russia, Iran, or China using cell phones to try and incite conflict,” he said. “You see this whenever crowds are really worked up. It’s a great opportunity for a foreign power to really just put a pinprick in there and really push someone towards violence.”

Watch above via MSNBC

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Zachary Leeman

Zachary Leeman covered pop culture and politics at outlets such as Breitbart, LifeZette, BizPac Review, HollywoodinToto, and others. He is the author of the novel Nigh. He joined Mediaite in 2022.