In a series of speeches organized by Rev. Al Sharpton, Mayor Eric Adams and City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli spoke out alongside faith leaders against the normalization of political violence following Saturday’s assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
The event comes as elected officials continue to react a day after Trump was injured while delivering a speech at a rally in Pennsylvania. Federal law enforcement said a gunman fired at him, killing one person and wounding two others before Secret Service agents killed the suspected shooter.
Speaking Sunday, a group of New York City officials and faith leaders rebuked what they called “toxic violence” pervading American politics, and invoked Trump’s own words of unity.
“He and I have debated for 35 years, but violence is wrong,” Sharpton said of Trump. “This is more than politics. This is whether or not we make this country where people don’t want to practice getting in the political process because we’ve normalized violence.”
Sharpton recalled his own 1991 stabbing and said he prayed for Trump.
“I don’t care who you are in public life, your family is traumatized,” he said. “It will not end with everybody just saying words. This is something you will never ever get over.”
Adams, a moderate, praised Democrat Sharpton and Republican Borelli for coming together in City Hall’s rotunda to “dam every river of the toxic violence.” The mayor said he faulted social media for polarizing young people.
“These algorithms that are drawing our young people into dark places,” Adams said, “[they] play on the most extreme level of us. The more volatile you are, the more hate you put out, the more likes you get, the more it feeds into the darkness of us.”
Adams, who has been accused of his own aggressive rhetoric against migrants and Bidenand fearmongering in relation to crimesaid there needs to be more compassion in politics.
“The days of going back and forth on political banter is in my rear view mirror,” he said.
Borelli defended the right to be angry at the political system, but drew a distinction when it leads violence.
“Anger is not the problem in and of itself in politics,” Republican Joe Borelli said alongside. “Hate is the problem in politics, the dehumanization of your political opponents.”
In addition to Sharpton, other faith leaders speaking included Rev. A.R. Bernard, Imam Ahmed Ali Uzir and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, who called on all to pray for the president no matter who that president is.
“We used to say sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me,” Potasnik said. “Now I realize that’s wrong. That’s not true because words often become weapons.”
