While visiting a local North Carolina GOP campaign office that was burned down over the weekend, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) accused the media of devoting insufficient attention to the incident because of party bias.
“I’m here to call attention to an act of political terrorism on the Orange County republican headquarters in north Carolina,” Pence told a crowd of reporters outside the ruined office on Tuesday. “This has gotten very little national media attention, and I can’t help but feel that had this been the other way around—had it been an attack in this county on the other political party’s county headquarters—that the level of coverage and discussion would be significantly different and I think most of the American people know that.”
Pence’s running mate, Donald Trump, made a similar point on the show of syndicated radio host Mike Gallagher on Tuesday.
“They would have made Trump into being the worst, horrible, horrible human being,” the Republican presidential nominee said.
“They hardly even covered it,” Trump went on. “And if that were done to a Democratic place of the same nature it would be worldwide news. It would be the biggest thing, and they’d say ‘racism’ and all of this other nonsense that they use.”
The attack was widely covered by mainstream and smaller media outlets from all across the ideological spectrum, as was a fundraising effort led by a small group of journalism professors who raised over $13,000 to rebuild the office. Little new information has emerged in the state and federal investigation into the fire since Sunday, however, and no suspects have yet been identified.
Both Democratic and Republican politicians also strongly condemned the firebombing as a threat to U.S. democracy. Trump attributed the attack to “animals” who support Hillary Clinton, while Clinton expressed relief that no one was injured.
Pence himself acknowledged this in his press scrum outside the destroyed campaign headquarters.
“Everyone across the spectrum in this country, men and women of good will, be they Republican, Democrats or Independents universally condemned this attack on our system,” he said.
