In the days after the horrific effort to assassinate Donald Trump, MAGA figures have widely sought to exploit this moment of national crisis, by arguing that Democrats invited or even encouraged the shooting. The leading proponent of this absurd claim is Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, and on Tuesday, Trump announced that Vance will be his running mate. We talked to Alex Shephard, a senior editor at The New Republic and author of a great new piece on this new MAGA agitprop, about why the Vance pick—and other assorted signs—suggest that the politics around the shooting are going to get a lot more poisonous. Listen to this episode here.

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