Words matter.
In the midst of the 2016 campaign, a bit of punditry was born: Take Trump seriously, not literally. Two years later, Trump has done — or tried to do — everything he literally promised on the campaign trail, and on Wednesday morning, there was more chilling evidence that words matter, and that people listening to the president may be taking him very literally.
On Wednesday morning, the Secret Service announced it had intercepted packages containing “potential explosive devices” addressed to former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in New York and President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. Not long after, the CNN New York offices were evacuated after a suspected explosive device, addressed to former CIA director and MSNBC contributor John Brennan, was found in the mailroom.
Suspicious packages were also being investigated Wednesday afternoon at the Sunrise, Florida office of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) — the former chair of the Democratic National Committee — and an office building shared by the San Diego Union-Tribune, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and several other businesses, in San Diego, California.