Republican says Harris should drop Project 2025 ads – to protect Trump’s safety

The Republican congressman has urged the Harris campaign to ‘stick to the facts’

A Republican congressman has called on Kamala Harris to drop her Project 2025 ads following the second apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump’s life, claiming they incite violence and hatred towards the former president.

Byron Donalds, US representative for Florida’s 19th congressional district, appeared on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show to claim that Democrats deliberately inciting violence against the Republican candidate, rather than simply campaigning against his policies. An accusation that has been repeatedly denied by Democrats.

Donalds said Harris’ message condemning the alleged assassination attempt and saying she was, “thankful that former President Trump is safe" was not enough of an acknowledgment.

“What she should do is go through all the ad campaigns that they are running in the battleground states,” Donalds told The Ingraham Angle’s host. “Anything that references being destructive of democracy and all the other tropes and the lies, Project 2025—all that stuff, it should come down.”

Byron Donalds shakes hands with Donald Trump during the Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors national summit at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown on June 30, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Getty Images)

A Secret Service agent fired their weapon on Sunday afternoon after spotting a rifle poking through a fence on Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, while Mr Trump was on the course. After initially fleeing the scene, the suspect of the alleged assassination attempt was detained by police and identified as Ryan Wesley Routh.

Project 2025 is the blueprint, drawn up by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, for what a second Trump administration would look like. It has been derided by Democrats.

Byron Donalds seen standing next to Donald Trump at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 15, 2024 (AFP via Getty Images)

Donalds also urged the Harris campaign to “stick to the facts” - something his own presidential and vice presidential candidates seem unable to do considering the grossly racist rumor the Republican ticket has stirred up over the past week that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio.

“Stick to the policy. She can’t do that, so that’s why, in my view, they’re not going to change,” he added.

Earlier in the episode, he claimed Democrat’s rhetoric that Trump is a “threat to democracy” is the reason why people are attempting to assassinate him after Ingraham played a clip of former Clinton White House aide Keith Boykin saying Trump “projects the idea of protecting white supremacy.”

This appears to be the second attempt on Trump’s life in two months, after a gunman armed with a rifle shot at him on July 13th during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The would-be assassin killed one and injured Trump on his right ear before he was shot and killed by a sniper.