Gingrich: Shooting caused by ‘increasing intensity of hostility’ on the left

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) on Wednesday linked a growing trend of “hostility” on the left to violent incidents like the shooting that morning at congressional Republicans’ baseball practice.

“It’s part of a pattern,” Gingrich said on Fox News. “An increasing intensity of hostility on the left.”

Gingrich pointed to the violence and intimidation toward conservatives on college campuses as another sign of the left’s hostility toward Republicans and President Trump.

{mosads}”Look, I talk to college students regularly,” Gingrich continued, “who say that if they are openly for Trump, they get threatened.”

“I’ve had college students tell me they get threatened with being beaten up, some of them get death threats,” he said.

Gingrich then targeted comedian Kathy Griffin as an example of a member of the left advocating violence against Trump and other Republicans. Griffin was fired from CNN’s New Year’s Eve program after she posted a photo of her holding up a dummy head of Trump covered in ketchup.

“The intensity is very real, whether it’s a so-called comedian holding up the president’s head covered in blood, or right here in New York City, a play that shows the president being assassinated, or it’s Democratic leading national politicians using vulgarity because they can’t find any common language to talk,” Gingrich argued. He likely was referring to Central Park’s summer Shakespeare production of “Julius Caesar” that appears to portray the slain Roman dictator as Trump and to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who recently slammed the president for not keeping his promises using the expression “f— no.”