Canadian Gold Exports to China Surge in Another Sign of Gold Flowing from West to East

Money Metals News Service
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Canadian Gold Exports to China Surge in Another Sign of Gold Flowing from West to East

(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) Canada’s growing gold exports to China provide more evidence of the shift of gold from the West to the East. 

Asian gold demand has been hot through the first half of 2024. Vietnamese and Thai investors flocked to gold despite long lines and high prices.  Gold is flying off convenience store shelves in Korea. And gold demand in India recently surged during an important festival.

But China has been the biggest driver in Eastern gold demand. 

As the Chinese central bank bought gold and dumped U.S. Treasuries, young Chinese investors lined up at shops to purchase gold beans.

Franco-Nevada Corp. Chairman Emeritus Pierre Lassonde recently said the world needs to wake up to this fact.

“The marginal buyer of gold is no longer the U.S. It’s no longer Europe. It’s China. … China takes up over two-thirds of all the annual production…That’s where the gold price is set.” 

Meanwhile, Western investors still haven’t hopped on the bandwagon, despite record gold prices in recent months. Fund managers Leigh Goehring and Adam Rozencwajg noted in their Q1 newsletter that Western investors have lost their influence in the gold market and continued to liquidate gold holdings in the first quarter even as prices rallied.

“Western investors continue to sell their gold while Central Banks and Chinese and Indian retail investors continue to buy aggressively. With gold making record highs, it is clear who is winning.”

Although the People’s Bank of China has paused gold buying (at least as far as what they’re officially reporting), the Chinese central bank was the biggest gold buyer in 2023. Officially, the People’s Bank of China added more than 300 tons of gold to its reserves during its most recent buying spree.

An article in the Financial Post suggested the Chinese are trying to minimize their exposure to the dollar and the possibility of it being used as a weapon against them.

“Some analysts think China’s central bank’s growing purchases of gold is a geopolitical reaction. After Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. and its allies froze billions of dollars of Russian assets, and analysts have said they believe China views gold as a way to gain protection against the U.S. and any other country that could freeze its assets.”

The Chinese central bank isn’t alone in buying gold. Chinese investors are also snapping up the yellow metal.

“There has been this perception that central banks are the only buyers in town, but the reality is that the retail buying in both gold and silver has been buoyant as well, especially out of China,” Sprott Asset Management senior portfolio manager Shree Kargutkar told the Post.

This is despite record-high premiums on gold in China.

“The bottom line is there has been a marked change in the Chinese consumer as far as gold and silver go; they’re paying up for it,” Kargutkar said.

China ranks as the world’s top gold producer. Nevertheless, it still must import gold from other countries to meet demand.

Canada is one of the countries that supplies gold to China, and Canadian gold exports have surged this year despite trade tensions between the two countries.

Ontario Minister of Economic Development Vic Fedeli told the Financial Post that precious metals now represent the province’s biggest export to China.

In 2023, Canada sold $589 million CAD in gold to the Chinese. That was up from $189 million CAD in 2020. That represents a 211.6 percent increase. 

World Gold Council senior market strategist Joe Cavatoni called gold exports to China “a key component for the Canadian mining market.”

There is no sign that the Asian love affair with gold is going to end any time soon. That means a continued flow of gold from the West to the East.

Do Chinese and other Asian investors know something Westerners have forgotten?

And what will it mean for the gold market if Westerners figure it out?

Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

Putting the National Debt Into Perspective We Can All Understand

Money Metals News Service
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Putting the National Debt Into Perspective We Can All Understand

(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) U.S. government borrowing and spending never stops. The federal government ran another big deficit in June, as the national debt inches closer to $35 trillion.

$35 trillion USD.

Trillion with a ‘T.’ 

That’s an unfathomable number. It’s meaningless to most people. We simply can’t comprehend a number that big.

Let’s try to put the $34.9 trillion national debt into perspective.

According to the National Debt Clock, every American citizen would have to write a check for $103,565 to pay off the national debt. 

Of course, a lot of people don’t pay taxes. That means the taxpayer burden is much higher. Every U.S. taxpayer would have to write a check for $266,953 to wipe out the debt.  And that’s on top of the taxes we already pay!

To put it another way, $35 trillion is more than the total economies of China, Japan, Germany, and the UK combined.

Visualizing 1 Trillion

1,000,000,000,000

It’s hard to wrap your head around how big 1 trillion is, much less 35 trillion. Here are a few factoids to help you visualize just how big that number is:

  • There are 1 million seconds in 11.5 days. A trillion seconds is about 32,000 years. 
  • If you could say one number every second, it would take about 11.5 million years to count to 1 trillion. 
  • If you had spent $1 million every day since the birth of Christ, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.
  • If you line up dollar bills end-to-end, you could go to the moon and back around 203 times with $1 trillion. You could wrap them around the earth about 3,893 times.
  • If you stacked up 1 trillion dollar bills, the dollar tower would rise to 67,866 miles.
  • If a cup of coffee costs $3, you could buy 333 billion cups of coffee with $1 trillion. 
  • If you had 1 trillion dollars, you could give every person on Earth approximately $125.
  • One trillion grains of rice would weigh about 20,000 metric tons. 

Keep in mind that all of these examples only illustrate the size of $1 trillion. The national debt is nearly 35 times that number.

James Madison once called a large national debt a “public curse.”

“I go on the principle that a Public Debt is a Public curse and in a Rep. Govt. a greater than in any other.”

We’re certainly cursed to the tune of $35 trillion USD.

Thomas Jefferson said he considered “public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.”

In his Farewell Address, George Washington urged us to use debt sparingly – and, get this, actually pay it off as quickly as possible!

“As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it.”

We failed to heed the warning of the Anti-federalist writer Brutus.

“I can scarcely contemplate a greater calamity that could befall this country, than to be loaded with a debt exceeding their ability ever to discharge. If this be a just remark, it is unwise and improvident to vest in the general government a power to borrow at discretion, without any limitation or restriction.”

And here we are.

Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

Failed Assassination Marks Latest Escalation in Uncertainty

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Failed Assassination Marks Latest Escalation in Uncertainty

(Clint Siegner, Money Metals News Service) Following the shocking assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, the nation is left wondering exactly why it happened as well as what may be coming next.

There are already questions about whether the Secret Service, which answers to President Joe Biden, was incompetent or worse.

A man managed to scale a rooftop within 130 yards of Trump and take multiple shots. Eyewitnesses report seeing the shooter and repeatedly warning police and Secret Service for minutes prior to the assassination attempt.

There is a video of the rooftop snipers who ultimately shot and killed the would-be assassin, which appears to show them watching and waiting until after he pulled the trigger several times before taking him out.

The FBI will investigate the incident. But many Americans have no confidence Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice or the FBI will get to the bottom of what really happened. Their involvement could multiply, not reduce, the number of questions people have about the incident.

The Republican National Convention starts today.

The plan is for Trump to receive the party’s official nomination and deliver an acceptance speech on Thursday. Security will be increased, but some wonder if more attempts to assassinate the former President are coming.

In the months ahead, presidential politics and other geopolitical news will dominate the headlines, including those in the financial press. The markets are inextricably linked to these events.

At the moment, Donald Trump is garnering a lot of sympathy from voters and riding high in the polls. Markets are also riding high. But everything can change suddenly, at any time, without warning.

Investors should prepare accordingly.

Clint Siegner is a Director at Money Metals Exchange, a precious metals dealer recently named “Best in the USA” by an independent global ratings group. A graduate of Linfield College in Oregon, Siegner puts his experience in business management along with his passion for personal liberty, limited government, and honest money into the development of Money Metals’ brand and reach. This includes writing extensively on the bullion markets and their intersection with policy and world affairs.

UPDATE: After Early Struggles, FBI Hacks into Trump Shooter’s Phone

Ken Silva
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UPDATE: After Early Struggles, FBI Hacks into Trump Shooter’s Phone

Note: The original headline for this story was, “FBI Purportedly Struggling to Crack Trump Shooter’s Phone.” Shortly after the publication of that story, the FBI released an update at 3:05 p.m. on Monday, announcing that techs have now hacked into the would-be Trump assassin’s phone. Headline USA is adding that fact to the top of this story and changing the headline, but the rest of the article remains unchanged.

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The FBI has reportedly taken alleged Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks’s phone to its lab in Quantico, Virginia, where its technicians are working to unlock it as part of the investigation into his possible motives.

The FBI announced at 3:05 p.m. that its techs have gained access to Thomas Matthew Crooks’ phone, and they continue to analyze his electronic devices.

According to Fox News reporter Laura Ingraham, the FBI’s finest techies struggled at first to crack the phone.

“An official is telling Fox they believe the shooter acted alone. We’re also learning they can’t get into his cellphone,” Ingraham said on Sunday. “They have it at Quantico but haven’t been able to get any data out of it.”

The FBI’s claim that it can’t crack Crooks’s phone should be treated with skepticism. The bureau has a track record of lying about such matters.

The most notorious case of the FBI claiming it couldn’t crack an encrypted phone happened in December 2015, in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, in which two shooters killed more than a dozen victims.

At the time, the FBI claimed it couldn’t access one of the shooters’ iPhones. The bureau sought a court order to force Apple to help the FBI break the phone’s encryption.

Apple resisted the FBI’s coercsion, but the dispute was never fully litigated. It turned out, the FBI hired an Australian cybersecurity firm to hack the phone around March 2016 or shortly thereafter. The purported true story of how the FBI unlocked the phone wasn’t told until 2021.

A similar situation occurred in May 2020, when then-Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray criticized Apple for not helping investigators who were attempting to gain access to two iPhones used by Mohammed Alshamrani, who launched a terror attack at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida in December 2019.

Wray has continued his anti-encryption throughout the years. In March 2021, for example, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee that encryption was stifling his agents from investigating domestic extremism.

“Like Alshamrani, the plotters who sought to kidnap the governor of Michigan late last year used end-to-end encrypted apps to hide their communications from law enforcement. Their plot was only disrupted by well-timed human source reporting and the resulting undercover operation,” Wray said at the time.

“Subjects of our investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol siege used end-to-end encrypted communications as well.”

According to Wray and other law enforcers, tech companies should be able to build “backdoors” into their encryption that preserves privacy, while allowing for access when necessary. That, they say, strikes the proper balance between data security and national security.

However, numerous tech experts, civil libertarians, and others say that it’s impossible to build a backdoor that can’t be exploited by hackers. They also say that by banning encryption, the United States would be following in the footsteps of authoritarian countries such as China, which blocked the encrypted messaging app Signal.

“It is important to understand that any kind of back door (or front door) access for the ‘good guys’ can also be exploited by the ’bad guys,’” the pro-industry Information Technology & Innovation Foundation stated in a July 2020 report, in the midst of the Apple-Barr controversy.

“For example, key escrow systems would introduce new attack vectors that could allow attackers to gain access to encrypted information, such as by compromising the system that maintains copies of the keys.”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Anti-Trump FDNY Boss Announces Resignation After Leaked Texts

Luis Cornelio
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Anti-Trump FDNY Boss Announces Resignation After Leaked Texts

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The infamous commissioner of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) announced her plans to resign amid mounting scandals, many related to her contentious stance against former President Donald Trump. 

Leading the agency since 2022, Laura Kavanagh stated in an email that it was time to “pass the torch” to a new commissioner, as reported by the New York Post on Saturday. 

“My dedication to the FDNY has never and will never waver,” she added. “It has been the honor of a lifetime to devote the last 10 years — five as first deputy commissioner and more than two as commissioner — to advocating for the men and women of the FDNY.” 

Kavanagh faced criticism after launching a vicious investigation into firefighters who booed New York Attorney General Letitia James during a ceremony in March.

The incident occurred shortly after James’s controversial civil judgment against the Trump Organization. “Trump! Trump! Trump!” a group of firefighters chanted, blocking James from addressing the crowd in March.

“Oh, come on. We’re in a house of God. First, uhm, simmer down,” James replied to the loud chants. “Thank you for getting it out of your system.” 

In response, Kavanaugh unleashed an investigation into the firefighters in a bid to re-educate them. The FDNY ultimately halted the probe amid public outcry. 

Last week, released text messages between Kavanagh and James revealed their sentiments about the pro-Trump hecklers.

“I should have called you last night, but I’ve been trying to find a way to say I’m sorry that doesn’t involve me apologizing for men who don’t deserve such grace,” a text from Kavanagh read. “I haven’t succeeded. I am sorry that we didn’t stop them and that I can’t fix them.” 

Despite Mayor Eric Adams initially defending Kavanagh, calling her a valuable member of his administration, her tenure as commissioner was marked by controversy, including delays in fire responses. 

“I love her style — I want her in my administration, whichever she decides to do,” he said. “She sat down with me some time ago and said, ‘I’m looking to do some other things in my life at this moment,’ and whenever she decides to do so, she will. As long as she wants to be my fire commissioner, she will be my fire commissioner.” 

Critics within the city’s government highlighted her background as a political operative rather than a firefighter. “[S]he’s been unable to do what she was brought in to do: put out political fires,” a source in the city’s government told the Post. 

Unprecedented Haitian Influx Overwhelms Ohio City, Igniting Dire Warnings

Luis Cornelio
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Unprecedented Haitian Influx Overwhelms Ohio City, Igniting Dire Warnings

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Springing, a city in southwestern Ohio, is facing an unprecedented number of newly arrived illegal aliens, most from Haiti, who have strained local resources, Fox News reported on Saturday. 

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue blamed the Biden administration’s lax immigration policies in an interview on Fox News’s Fox and Friends First. 

“This border crisis, the policy of this administration, is failing cities like ours and taxing us beyond our limit,” Rue said. “This has overwhelmed safety services and caused great concern for our community.” 

City Manager Bryan Heck echoed Rue’s concerns, highlighting that Springfield’s infrastructure and services cannot support the new arrivals. 

“It’s taxing our infrastructure,” Heck stated. “It’s taxing public safety. It’s taxing our schools. It’s taxing health care…it’s taxing our housing. … “It’s setting communities like Springfield up to fail. And, we do not have the capacity to sustain it, and, without additional federal assistance or support, communities like Springfield will fail.” 

According to Heck, federal funding to the city has decreased in recent years, failing to keep pace with the population increase triggered by illegal aliens. 

“Federal funding has actually been reduced over the last couple of years…so that’s concerning to us as a community, because certainly adding 15 to 20,000, we need additional support, we need additional resources,” he said. 

Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, addressed these dire concerns with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on a Tuesday hearing, citing a letter from Heck to U.S. Senators. 

Reading from the letter, Vance said, “‘Springfield has seen a surge in population through immigration that has significantly impacted our ability as a community to produce enough housing opportunities for all Springfield’s Haitian population has increased 15 to 20,000 over the last four years in a community of under 60,000 previous residents putting a significant strand on our resources and ability to provide ample housing for all of our residents.’” 

RNC Clarifies Convention Status Following Trump Shooting

Luis Cornelio
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RNC Clarifies Convention Status Following Trump Shooting

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The Republican National Convention will continue as scheduled following the failed assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, the campaign announced on Saturday evening. 

“President Trump looks forward to joining you all in Milwaukee as we proceed with our convention to nominate him to serve as the 47th President of the United States,” Republican officials stated. 

RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump first shared the statement on Twitter. Trump campaign senior advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita also signed the statement.

The convention begins on Monday, during which the GOP will officially nominate Trump as their candidate for the 2024 genera. Trump is also expected to announce his running mate in the coming days.

The announcement followed Trump’s reaction to the shooting, in which he assured everyone he was fine and expressed gratitude to the Secret Service for their protection. 

Trump also expressed his thoughts about the shooting’s victims.  

“I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the Rally who was killed, and also to the family of another person that was badly injured,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.  “It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead.” 

According to the post, Trump was hit by a bullet that pierced his upper right ear, narrowly missing his head. 

“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” the former president added. “Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.” 

House Homeland Security Chair Demands Answers About Trump Rally Security Plan

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House Homeland Security Chair Demands Answers About Trump Rally Security Plan

(Dan McCaleb, The Center Square) – U.S. Rep Mark Green, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, wants answers about the federal government’s plans to secure the perimeter of the campaign event in Pennsylvania where a shooter attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump.

Green, R-Tenn., sent a letter Sunday to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas seeking details of the security plan, “including areas such as the building from which the shooter attempted the assassination on President Trump, communications between or among personnel at the Department of Homeland Security and the Executive Office of the President related to any potential increase or addition of protective resources to President Trump’s security detail;” and materials used to brief President Joe Biden about the assassination attempt.

“The seriousness of this security failure and chilling moment in our nation’s history cannot be understated,” Green wrote. “No assassination attempt has come so close to taking the life of a president or presidential candidate since President Reagan was shot in 1981.

An eyewitness to the shooting told the British Broadcasting Corporation that he and others who attended the rally spotted the shooter – identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania – on the nearby building rooftop minutes before he opened fire, killing one rally attendee, seriously wounding another and striking Trump in his right ear.

The eyewitness, who BBC identified as Greg Smith, said he notified law enforcement of the gunman on the roof before the shooting took place.

“I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why is Trump still speaking, why have they not pulled him off the stage’… the next thing you know, five shots ring out,” BBC reported.

Green said that had the bullet’s trajectory “been slightly different, the assassination attempt on President Trump might have succeeded.”

“As the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) investigates, the Committee on Homeland Security (Committee) is dedicated to conducting rigorous oversight to ensure that the American people receive answers and presidential candidates receive proper and adequate protection,” Green added.

Green said that, according to the Secret Service, the shooter “fired multiple shots toward the stage from an elevated position outside of the rally venue,” raising concerns about how the shooter ‘was able to access a rooftop within range and direct line of sight of where President Trump was speaking.”

Green also alleged in the letter that some media reports indicate that DHS “’rebuffed’ multiple requests from President Trump’s security detail to increase protective resources in the weeks preceding this event.”

The demands to Mayorkas come after U.S. House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said Saturday night that he wanted the U.S. Secret Service director to appear for a hearing before Congress to testify about the security plans for the campaign event.

Elon Musk Calls for Resignations of Secret Service Brass, Says He Now Endorses Trump

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Elon Musk Calls for Resignations of Secret Service Brass, Says He Now Endorses Trump

(Tom Gantert, The Center Square) Elon Musk sounded off on the assassination attempt of President Donald Trump as he posted on Twitter that he was endorsing Trump and was highly critical of the Secret Service charged with protecting him.

“Extreme incompetence or it was deliberate,” Musk posted on Twitter, responding to another comment on X that stated about the shooter, “He was a sniper with a full rifle kit allowed to bear crawl onto the closest roof to a presidential nominee.”

Then Musk, who owns the social media platform Twitter and has 189.6 million followers, posted, “Either way, the SS leadership must resign.”

Trump survived an assassination attempt Saturday when he was shot in the ear by a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks.

Musk mocked Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the United States Secret Service. Musk posted a biography of Cheatle that stated before her appointment to the Secret Service, she was senior director of Global Security at PepsiCo.

“So, before being put in charge of protecting the PRESIDENT, she was guarding bags of Cheetos …” Musk posted.

PepsiCo is the parent company of Cheetos.

“The head of the Secret Service and the leader of this security detail should resign,” Musk tweeted in response to a BBC clip on X that had an eyewitness claiming he informed police and the Secret Service about a suspicious man on a roof with a rifle.

Musk posted, “Exactly” on X to another post that had a video of the dead sniper on the rooftop that asked, “How the hell was such an obvious line of sight not secured?”

Musk also reposted a tweet about an exchange a day earlier between Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, and Reid Hoffman, the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, at an event in Idaho.

According to multiple news sites, the day before the assassination attempt, Thiel sarcastically thanked Hoffman at an event for helping fund the lawsuits against Trump, saying they turned the former president into “a martyr.”

Hoffman was on the stage and responded to Thiel by saying, “Yeah, I wish I had made him an actual martyr.”

“The Reid Hoffman’s of the world got their dearest wish … but the martyr lived,” Musk posted.

Musk’s first post on the assassination attempt stated, “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.”

Trump Allies Point to Democratic Rhetoric Prior to Assassination Attempt

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Trump Allies Point to Democratic Rhetoric Prior to Assassination Attempt

(Bethany Blankley, The Center Square) – Conservative allies of Donald Trump are pointing to rhetoric from Democrats as creating a hostile environment leading up to Saturday’s assassination attempt of the former president.

Among them are U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, who said, “Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, also said, “The Democrats and the media are to blame for every drop of blood spilled today. For years and years, they’ve demonized him and his supporters. Today, someone finally tried to take out the leader of our America First and the greatest President of all time.”

President Joe Biden condemned the attack, calling it “sick.” His campaign also announced it was “pausing all outbound communications and working to pull down our television ads as quickly as possible.”

Trump called for unity Saturday night and again Sunday morning after he was shot in the right ear at a weekend rally near Pittsburgh.

Trump’s defense attorney in his February 2021 impeachment trial played a four-minute video compilation of comments about the former president.

The compilation includes a clip of U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, saying, “I will go and take Trump out tonight” and of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Conn., saying, “take him out now,” referring to Trump.

It also includes a clip of an MSNBC commentator saying, “they’re still going to have to go out and put a bullet in Donald Trump” and of the musician Madonna saying, “I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House” when Trump and his family lived there.

It also includes a clip of comedian Ellen DeGeneres asking then U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, “If you have to be stuck in an elevator with either President Trump, [former Vice President] Mike Pence or [former Attorney General] Jeff Sessions, who would it be?”

Harris responded, “Does one of us have to come out alive?” She and Ellen both laughed profusely.

The compilation includes several clips of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-California, saying multiple times, “We’ve got to be ready to throw a punch,” presumably against Republican political opponents. It also includes clips of Democratic U.S. senators Jon Tester of Montana and Corey Booker of New Jersey saying they wanted to punch Trump.

It also includes clips of then Vice President Joe Biden on the campaign trail saying if he were in high school, he’d take Trump behind the gym and “beat the hell out of him.”

The compilation highlights clips of Democratic lawmakers appearing to incite violence against Trump supporters. One clip shows Waters shouting to a group, “push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore anywhere.”

Another is a Facebook post of Rep. Cynthia Johnson, D-Mich., saying, “this is just a warning for you Trumpers. Be careful, walk lightly. And for those of you who are soldiers, make them pay.”

Trump has also called out Hollywood, including for producing the 2020 movie, The Hunt. The movie appears to depict “a cabal of liberal ‘elites’” … who hunt and kill kidnapped conservative ‘deplorables’ … for sport.” Originally slated to air in September 2019, it was pulled after a mass shooting occurred in El Paso, Texas, one month prior that was characterized as politically motivated.

While several outlets depicted it as “political satire,” Trump warned, “Liberal Hollywood is Racist at the highest level, and with great Anger and Hate! They like to call themselves ‘Elite,’ but they are not Elite. In fact, it is often the people that they so strongly oppose that are actually the Elite. The movie coming out is made in order to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence, and then try to blame others. They are the true Racists, and are very bad for our Country!”

Several media websites criticized Trump’s response to the movie.

After his failed assassination attempt, Trump called for unity, saying, “In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand united, and show our true character as Americans, remaining strong and determined, and not allowing evil to win.”

Former First Lady Melania Trump also called for unity, saying, “A monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine attempted to ring out … my husband’s life – his human side,” she said. “Let us not forget that differing opinions, policy, and political games are inferior to love. Our personal, structural, and life commitment – until death – is at serious risk. Political concepts are simple when compared to us, human beings.

“And let us remember that when the time comes to look beyond the left and the right, beyond the red and the blue, we all come from families with the passion to fight for a better life together, while we are here, in this earthly realm.

“Dawn is here again. Let us reunite. Now.”

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