The mother of alleged MAGABomber Cesar Sayoc penned an open letter to ABC in which she called on President Donald Trump to stop his “War” rhetoric against Democrats and the news media, saying that such messages are taken “as a license to violently act out in our country.”
Madeline Sayoc‘s words are making waves. Trump’s rhetoric had already been blamed after a recent surge in right-wing extremist violence. Now another such condemnation has come from the mother of the man alleged to have targeted several high-profile Democrats and liberal media figures with a series of pipe bombs.
Near the end of her letter, she writes:
[O]ur political leaders, like our President, Donald Trump, need to recognize that there are many sick people in this country who take their rhetoric and words of “War with the Media” and “War with the Democrats” to heart and view such messages as a license to violently act out in our country. This type of talk excites and incites and is unacceptable.
Since Cesar Sayoc was apprehended by the FBI on October 26, at least two additional incidents of right-wing violence have shocked the nation.
The day after, on October 27, eleven people were killed and seven were injured during the largest anti-Semitic pogrom in U.S. history at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Less than one week later, an alleged right-wing “incel” extremist took the lives of two women and injured five other people at a yoga studio in Florida.
The full Madeline Sayoc letter is reproduced in full below.
Dear ABC:
I am presently recuperating from surgery last week and having difficulty breathing. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to write this letter to share my feelings and views. I awakened from my surgery in the hospital last week to learn that my son Cesar has been arrested as the accused (bomber).
While I have not lived with my son for 35 years or even heard from him in over four years, I cannot express how deeply hurt, sad, shocked and confused I am to hear that my son may have caused so many people to be put in fear for their safety. This is not how I raised him or my children.
While I am grateful that no one was actually harmed, all of us in America have an absolute right to live their lives without fear of violent harm, injury or death.
My son has been ill for a long time and my family and I have tried, over and over again, without success to urge him to get the help he needs.
We, in America, have a mental health crisis in this country and need to change the laws to allow families to compel and require mental health treatment for those in need of such treatment before their illness worsens to where it is too late.
Similarly, our political leaders, like our President, Donald Trump, need to recognize that there are many sick people in this country who take their rhetoric and words of “War with the Media” and “War with the Democrats” to heart and view such messages as a license to violently act out in our country.
This type of talk excites and incites and is unacceptable. I beg President Trump and others to refrain from talk of War with fellow Americans and remember, as Senator McCain taught us, that we may politically disagree, but we are all patriotic Americans and all we want is a safe country for all Americans.
Humbly,
Madeline Sayoc
[image via FBI]
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