President Trump is no stranger to threats on his life and has survived two assassination attempts, but now the death threats and violence have expanded to targeting his Cabinet officials and other members of the administration.
A Pennsylvania man was recently charged with repeatedly threatening to kill Mr. Trump, top adviser Elon Musk and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The man, 32-year-old Shawn Monper, used the online moniker “Mr. Satan” and tried to obtain a firearm permit shortly after Mr. Trump’s inauguration in January.
He was from Butler, the same western Pennsylvania town where Mr. Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in July, and the would-be assassin was killed by Secret Service agents.
Mr. Musk, who leads the cost-cutting efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency, also has had his Tesla dealerships firebombed and scores of the electric cars vandalized.
New Mexico resident Jamison Wagner, 40, faces federal charges for arson attacks this year on the Tesla Albuquerque Showroom and the Republican Party of New Mexico.
The attack on the Tesla dealership included Graffiti spray-painted in red and black paint on the building and six vehicles, including the phrases “Die Elon,” “Tesla Nazi Inc” and “Die Tesla Nazi” along with swastika symbols.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and her family recently received death threats from a Georgia man.
Aliakbar Mohammed Amin, 24, was arrested for sending Ms. Gabbard text messages such as “Prepare to die, you, Tulsi, and everyone you hold dear. America will burn,” according to federal prosecutors.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said death threats “shouldn’t be tolerated.”
“The White House, the president, and the entire administration condemn any threats of violence against any administration officials or public officials on both sides of the aisle,” she said at a White House press briefing.
The death threats against Mr. Trump’s team began as soon as he started making nominations, with threats against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who was nominated for ambassador to the U.N. before withdrawing to help bolster the Republican House majority.
“At the moment, I would have to say that political violence is more likely to be threatened by the left than by the right, though conservatives are certainly capable of using violence,” said Benjamin Ginsberg, a Johns Hopkins University professor who studies political violence. “Anger of progressive Democrats against the Trump administration bleeds over into threats made against government officials and, a few months ago, against a variety of appointees.”
He said political violence isn’t a new phenomenon, but it is now bursting into plain sight.
“Hatred of Trump and the members of the administration is so severe, so intense, that normally sensible people are willing to countenance, even if they themselves wouldn’t do it, or willing to countenance violence directed against their opponents,” he said.
A recent survey from the Network Contagion Research Institute found that about half of liberal-leaning Americans could “at least somewhat” justify the assassinations of Mr. Trump and Elon Musk, 55% and 48%, respectively.
More than half of liberals also said that destroying Tesla dealerships is acceptable.
Researchers at the Rutgers-based institute said political violence targeting Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk “is becoming increasingly normalized,” and the left-leaning social media platform Bluesky “plays a significant and predictive role in amplifying radical ideation.”
The researchers warned about the growing chance of “real world escalation” unless political and cultural leaders condemn the pro-violence chatter.
The death threats and attacks have not only targeted Mr. Trump and his administration. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, and his family escaped an arson attack.
Cody Balmer, 38, is accused of a “political motivation” linked to the conflict in Gaza when he threw a Molotov cocktail into the governor’s mansion just hours after the Shaprios, who are Jewish, celebrated Passover.
Police released a 911 call allegedly made by Mr. Balmer shortly after the firebombing in which he said Mr. Shapiro should know we “will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.”
Mr. Balmer also said Mr. Shapiro “needs to stop having my friends killed” and that “our people have been put through too much by that monster.”
Mr. Trump condemned the attack on Mr. Shapiro, noting that Mr. Balmer wasn’t a Trump fan, either.
“The attacker basically wasn’t a fan of anybody. He’s probably just a whack job, and certainly a thing like that cannot be allowed to happen,” Mr. Trump told reporters.
Mr. Ginsberg said hostility toward Trump associates isn’t entirely new. Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, called on people to confront and harass Trump administration officials during his first term, though taunting people in restaurants is not the same as a death threat or a firebomb.
He also pointed to other recent episodes of political violence, including those by Black Lives Matter and Antifa.
“That’s an important lesson about violence politics — it’s not usually spontaneous,” he said. “Violence requires preparation and organization,” Mr. Ginsberg said. “When you have an environment in which organized violence is taking place, then that encourages the lunatic fringe, the nutty kids to come out and join the fun.”
