CNN’s Tapper: Trump and His Minions’ ‘Lies’ Could Lead to ‘Stochastic Terrorism’

CNN’s anchor Jake Tapper said Monday that President Donald Trump’s “lies” could lead to “stochastic terrorism,” which is when a leader publicly demonizes a person or group, resulting in violent acts.

The panel was discussing comments in a radio interview by State Rep. Gary Eisen (R) suggesting that he and other protesters plan to disrupt the Electoral College vote at the Lansing state capitol and White House advisor Stephen Miller saying earlier on Fox News that the battleground states the administration is disputing will have “alternate” electors cast in Congress.

Tapper said, “It has been a challenge of this year when people like Steven Miller go on the president’s favorite channel and say things that are just shamelessly false or talk about this fantasy land alternate slight of electors. We don’t know if they’re cynically lying or if they are intellectually unable to understand the facts or if there is some psychological issue, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter because the lies are having an effect.”

He added, “There is this thing called a stochastic terrorism which is the idea of leaders putting out falsehoods, demonizing people, and acts of violence happen and can’t be directly tied, but there is a responsibility there. When President Trump and his minions put out these lies and then we see people in Michigan afraid, electors just doing their job as patriots –if the state went the other way, they would cast the electors for Donald Trump, but it didn’t. We see threats of violence. On one level is silly, funny, to look how crazy this is but on another level, there are real fears here. It is tremendously irresponsible.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN