Politico’s Jonathan Martin Rips Trump for Snubbing Gov. Shapiro After Attack on His Residence — Doubles Down Amid Criticism from the Right
Jonathan Martin, senior political columnist at Politico, criticized Donald Trump for staying silent after a suspected arson attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s residence. When faced with backlash from conservatives online, Martin stood by his comments and doubled down.
On April 7, a man broke into the residence of Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro in Harrisburg and set the building on fire. Shapiro and his family were evacuated, and no one was harmed.
Trump never issued a public statement or contacted Shapiro about the arson attack, which Martin blasted him for on ABC’s This Week on Sunday.
“You have a sitting Democratic governor who was nearly killed by an arsonist, who got into the governor’s mansion in Pennsylvania, who the sitting president of the United States cannot call to offer his sympathies because he doesn’t like his politics,” Martin told ABC’s Jonathan Karl.
Martin connected Trump’s silence on Shapiro to comments made days earlier by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who told reporters that Republican lawmakers are “afraid” to speak out against Trump, fearing political retaliation and even physical threats.
“Then you have a sitting Republican Senator, a longtime GOP Senator, prominent Republican family from Alaska, who is talking openly about being scared of retribution,” he said. Martin added:
“Not just political by the way, but physical threats to her and her family’s safety. It’s uncharted territory. And I think it is incumbent upon the people in the Republican Party to speak up about it. It’s not normal. It’s not healthy. If this happened under a Clinton or a Bush or anybody else, Obama, what have you, they’d be screaming from the rooftops. And I think those two cases, back to back, Shapiro and Murkowski, tell us everything about the peril of this moment. And it’s deeply serious.”
A clip of Martin’s comments went viral on X after Brent Baker — a staffer for the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group — shared a video of Martin’s comments and wrote a “pro-Palestinian arsonist” went after Shapiro and Martin used it as an “excuse to denounce Donald Trump.”
The Politico columnist doubled down when confronted with the criticism of some on the right:
Yes, it is a big ask, but there was once a time when American presidents would call a governor who had to be evacuated bc an arsonist set fire to his home
Or, ya know, even put out a statement the day it happened
But it’s understood that Trump won’t do the basics and his apologists avert gaze
Watch above via ABC News.
