Actor Randy Quaid, a vocal Donald Trump supporter known for playing Cousin Eddie in the National Lampoon‘s Vacation series, has blamed Michelle Obama for both attempts to shoot the former president.
“It’s @MichelleObama who asked Twitter to ban Trump in 2019, it’s she who started the hateful ‘I fear Trump rhetoric,'” Quaid wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday. “I blame her and Biden/Harris for both shootings.”
In another Tweet Quaid says: “The assassin probably had Michelle Obama on a loop saying “Do something!” “Do something!” “Do something!” “Do something!”
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was charged with gun offenses following his arrest on Sunday after the Secret Service spotted a gunman by a bush-lined fence at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. Nine weeks earlier Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot and killed while attempting to assassinate Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Quaid alleged that Obama is manipulating people into registering to vote by fearmongering about Trump.
Michelle Obama at the Democratic National convention in Chicago, August 20, 2024, left, and Randy Quaid in Los Angeles, California, December 1, 2019, right. Quaid, a vocal Donald Trump has blamed Michelle Obama for both attempts to shoot Trump.
“Their vilification of Trump is what started it all. And her voter registration Ponzi scam should be investigated because it’s based on the Frankensteining of Trump,” Quaid wrote. “Mrs. Obama has a terminal case of TDS [Trump Derangement Syndrome]. She should be quarantined.”
“Trump should get damages for being shot at because of their unjust Frankensteining of him.”
Michelle Obama created a voter registration initiative called “When We All Vote” in 2018. It was intended to be a non-partisan project to increase voter participation.
Quaid’s comments come as Trump has also laid the blame for the two assassination attempts on rhetoric from Democrats.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that politics has been taken to “a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust” because of “false statements made by Comrade Kamala Harris,” and “ridiculous lawsuits” against him.
In the 2024 campaigns of both Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris, Democrats have focused on Trump’s past anti-democratic statements, including his December 2023 statement that he would be a dictator on the first days of his presidency, his July statement that, if elected, Christians “won’t have to vote anymore,” and his December 2022 statement that the 2020 election results should be thrown out, writing that alleged “massive fraud” should allow for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
After the July attempt on Trump’s life, Biden told NBC‘s Lester Holt that he regretted a statement from days earlier, that it was “time to put Trump in a bull’s-eye.”
“It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden said. “I meant focus on him. Focus on what he’s doing.”
Biden and Harris have both condemned Sunday’s attempted shooting.
As well as accusing Democrats of using inflammatory rhetoric, Trump has continued to accuse Harris of being a “Marxist” who is “DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY.”
He described the Democrat language as invoking “hatred” while his last public utterance before Sunday’s attempted shooting was writing “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT” on Truth Social. Quaid agreed with Trump in a retweet of the Republican presidential nominee’s post targeting the 34-year-old singer-songwriter.
This week has seen numerous instances of political violence. Trump’s debunked claim during last week’s debate that Haitian immigrants are “eating the pets” of people living in Springfield, Ohio, has been followed by Springfield’s schools and health care facilities being evacuated due to bomb and shooting threats.
Trump said he made the accusation because he saw it on television.
Newsweek has contacted a spokesperson for Michelle Obama via online form, Quade via social media, and the Harris and Trump campaigns via email for comment.
