Threats against incoming administration officials would be treated "more like a potential national crisis" if a Democrat had won the White House this month rather than President-elect Donald Trump, political analyst Mark Halperin told Newsmax on Thursday.
At least nine members of Trump's transition team and his roster of Cabinet nominees were hit with violent threats to them and their families, including "bomb threats and swatting" on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
"Newsline" host Bianca de la Garza asked Halperin if President Joe Biden should say more about wanting a peaceful transition.
"This is super unfortunate and obviously is a burden on these folks," Halperin said. "They want to be in public service. Their families are going to be affected by this. And in the wake of the two assassination attempts against President Trump, everybody has to take this stuff seriously. You can't just assume it's some sort of prank or hoax.
"It would be good if this were elevated a little bit more. I don't like to, particularly around the holidays, turn everything into an either/or media story, but I think if these were Democratic appointees and a new Democratic administration, this would be being treated less like sort of a curiosity and more like a potential national crisis. And it would be great, I think, if the president made sure that everybody felt safe and secure."
Halperin also discussed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday.
"It's a good thing the guy [Zuckerberg] is physically fit. He famously works out a lot because it's hard to both bend the knee and kiss the ring at the same time. It requires a fair amount of coordination," Halperin said.
"Every CEO in America and many around the world know that being on the good side of Donald Trump is important if they want their business to thrive. He cast it and his spokesman … cast it as just a nice great get-together.
"Elon Musk and some of the other folks who are from tech are extremely involved in the transition. And I think Zuckerberg is lucky that he has, and fortunate, that he has enough pull to say, 'Hey, I'd like to come down to Mar-a-Lago and kiss and bend.' And he got received."
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