A Democratic North Carolina state representative ignited volcanic backlash after calling for the assassination of President Donald Trump on the same day that a Minnesota politician and her husband were assassinated.
On Saturday, Rep. Julie von Haefen posted a photo on social media showing a protester gleefully holding a flagpole banner with a grisly image of a bloody guillotine at the anti-Trump “No Kings” protest in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The banner bore the words, “In these difficult times, some cuts may be necessary.” The flagpole was flanked by two prop decapitated heads, one of which resembled Trump.
The other severed head had a Nazi swastika carved into its forehead. As a reminder, Democrats routinely attack Trump and other conservatives as “Nazis.”
The horrific image essentially called for Trump‘s assassination — an appalling incitement to violence considering he was nearly assassinated twice last year.
REP. Julie Von Haefen needs a restraining order. Shes sick and this is dangerous.
Democrats feed the mentally unstable. They are the reason. This is inciteful and disgusting.
Read her sign. CONGRESS, I know she’s a state Representative but she needs reprimanded like now. She… pic.twitter.com/G3xY05AEgx
— Alaskagirl (@Alaskacryptogi1) June 15, 2025
Von Haefen’s dangerous rhetoric was all the more inexcusable because on Saturday, former Democratic State House Speaker Melissa Hortman of Minnesota was shot to death, along with her husband, by suspected assassin Vance Luther Boelter.
Democratic Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were also shot and injured. Both couples were targeted at their respective homes.
Amid widespread backlash and calls for her resignation, Julie von Haefen conceded on Sunday that her inflammatory post was “inappropriate.”
Tellingly, the Democrat did not apologize for inciting violence against the sitting president.
Instead, she vacantly parroted a banal condemnation of “political violence in all forms.”
Calling for the president of the United States to be beheaded is un-democratic
It should also be un-Democratic
Tragically, it seems increasingly on-brand for today’s Democrats https://t.co/fSo1UlIIRj
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) June 15, 2025
Republican Destin Hall, the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, slammed von Haefen’s glorification of “violence against her political opponents.”
“Her disgraceful behavior fails to meet the standards expected from House members and sets a dangerous precedent in an already volatile political climate,” Hall wrote on X.
On the same weekend that a gunman in Minnesota targeted state lawmakers in an act of political violence, and after two attempted assassinations of President Trump within the past year, Representative von Haefen (D-Wake) shared an image of a “protest sign” that glorifies violence…
— Speaker Destin Hall (@ncspeakerhall) June 15, 2025
Even if no one had been assassinated this weekend, von Haefen should be removed from the North Carolina House of Representatives following her tone-deaf call for Trump’s assassination.
Allowing her and other Democrats to continue spewing violent rhetoric against their political opponents will only incentivize more assassination attempts.
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