Overview

• Speaking at a rally in Concord, North Carolina, Vice President JD Vance called the Dallas ICE shooting politically motivated and urged Democrats to stop calling opponents Nazis and law enforcement the Gestapo.
• Authorities identified the gunman as Joshua Jahn and said he killed one immigrant detainee, wounded two others, wrote “Anti-ICE” on a shell casing, and then died by suicide.
• A widely shared clip of Vance’s remarks on X drew hundreds of thousands of views and prompted reminders that he called Donald Trump “America’s Hitler” in a 2016 message reported by Reuters.
• Democrats, including Representative Eric Swalwell, seized on Vance’s past words to question his credibility after his appeal to curb inflammatory language.
• Vance has since said he was wrong about Trump and became his 2024 running mate, while the administration links left-leaning rhetoric to recent political violence, including the assassination of Charlie Kirk.