Patti Davis, daughter of the late former president Ronald Reagan, posted a blistering open letter to Donald Trump on Wednesday over remarks he made earlier in the week that many perceived as a threat against Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival in the 2016 presidential campaign.
The GOP presidential nominee made the comment Tuesday while stumping in North Carolina, saying in part, “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although, the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don’t know.” The Trump campaign immediately released a statement saying that remark was about “unification” at the polls, nothing more.
However, there was an immediate backlash from many who saw Trump’s remark as an assassination threat. Davis, too, thinks Trump, who’s often likened himself to Reagan, crossed a dangerous line.
“I am the daughter of a man who was shot by someone who got his inspiration from a movie, someone who believed if he killed the President the actress from that movie would notice him,” Davis, an actress and author began. “Your glib and horrifying comment about ‘Second Amendment people’ was heard around the world.”
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President Reagan was shot in March 1981 — only a few months after he took office — by John Hinckley Jr., a man obsessed with actress Jodie Foster and who believed killing Reagan would win her love. Hinckley was recently released from a mental institution to live with his mother.
Davis told Trump his remark on Tuesday traveled far, to all types of people.
“It was heard by sane and decent people who shudder at your fondness for verbal violence,” she wrote. “It was heard by your supporters, many of whom gleefully and angrily yell, ‘Lock her up!’ at your rallies. It was heard by the person sitting alone in a room, locked in his own dark fantasies, who sees unbridled violence as a way to make his mark in the world, and is just looking for ideas.”
She concluded with “Yes, Mr. Trump, words matter. But then you know that, which makes this all even more horrifying.”
