New Republic Says Scott Bessent Is to Blame for His Attempted Assassination

I didn’t know that somebody tried to kill Scott Bessent. Perhaps because it was just another day in the paradise we call the Divided States of America. 

🔥 At the State Department’s Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent answered critics who doubt the seriousness of far left political violence by making the threat personal.

Off-script, he reminded the room — delegates from roughly… pic.twitter.com/jvDCZsgqvs

— Gerald Posner (@geraldposner) July 17, 2026

🔥 At the State Department’s Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent answered critics who doubt the seriousness of far left political violence by making the threat personal.

Off-script, he reminded the room — delegates from roughly 65 nations — that he was the target of an assassination attempt by a left-wing activist two hours after being sworn in. (Bessent gave the wrong year on camera — he said 2024; the actual date was January 27, 2025 — but the case is real: a guilty plea, a federal docket, sentencing set for August 14.)

Bessent brought it up after a number of media folks, and Democrats pooh-poohed Marco Rubio’s speech about rising left-wing violence, because of course we all know that left-wingers are nice and conservatives are mean. 

Bessent appeared to be referring to the incident involving Ryan Michael English, a Massachusetts man who pleaded guilty earlier this year to federal charges after traveling to the U.S. Capitol carrying Molotov cocktails and a knife on the day of Bessent’s Senate confirmation vote. Prosecutors said English intended to kill the Treasury secretary nominee or attack another federal target before turning himself in to Capitol Police. He is scheduled to be sentenced next month.

I vaguely recall something about this case. Just another nutcase doing what some nutcases do, especially when they keep getting incited. 

And speaking of incitement, that’s pretty much what the once-esteemed New Republic, which has gone so far around the bend that it is almost as bad as The Bulwark, is doing when it takes a (metaphorical) shot at Bessent. 

New Republic: “Have you ever considered you deserve to be assassinated?”

There is no functioning country when half the population believes the other half deserves to die. https://t.co/ry8a6hA4dc

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) July 17, 2026

Bessent, you see, shouldn’t complain about somebody trying to kill him. Doesn’t he know that he deserves it?

It’s so interesting to watch these people wield what they see as this infallible moral compass, never once considering that they—and their predecessors—have created many of the conditions which have forced people to resist, whether it be abroad or domestically.

“Forced people to resist.” Hmm. 

This is yet another example of the DARVO tactic used by every abuser in the world. It is a pattern so common and obvious that psychologists use it to explain why spouse abusers get away with their despicable behavior so long and often. 

DARVO is “Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.” It’s what’s going on when a spouse who just beat up his wife screams, “Look what you made me do!” And here, the New Republic is telling the abused person—Bessent—to consider why people want to kill him and reform his behavior. It would be like a friend telling the abused woman to just do whatever her husband wants, and maybe he won’t kill her. 

That’s the whole point of these violent protests and assassination attempts: to force compliance and/or punish people for not doing exactly what the left-wing wants, and when we finally try to stop the violence, the activists and media cry victimhood.

“You made me do it!” 

Democrats and the media keep walking ever closer to the line of outright saying that Republicans have to be killed because we are existential threats. We are Nazis. We want to put black people “back in chains.” 

Is it any wonder that Luigi Mangione is a hero to the left? That every time a conservative dies or gets killed by a nutcase, the internet erupts in cheers? 

The New Republic used to be one of the most prestigious political magazines in America. I read it for years, even as a conservative, to see what smart liberals said. 

Now they want me dead. 

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