Comedian Kathy Griffin suggested on Twitter that the president should be injected with a syringe full of air.
Griffin made the violent suggestion in reply to CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta. Acosta was covering a May 26 event about diabetes during which the president asked if he should use insulin.
“Syringe with nothing but air inside it would do the trick. FUCK TRUMP,” Griffin wrote.
Syringe with nothing but air inside it would do the trick.
FUCK TRUMP https://t.co/iKyv7tffZJ
– Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) May 26, 2020
Air bubbles in the blood can cause a fatal embolism, and other Twitter users were quick to call Griffin’s comment a threat. Griffin herself then confirmed the violent implications of her comment in a reply to a separate tweet from The Washington Examiner, which posted a story about Griffin’s original comment.
The Washington Examiner’s tweet said that Griffin “advocates for someone to stab” the president with a syringe full of air and noted that injecting air into the bloodstream can be fatal. Griffin doubled down by replying “I SURE DID, FUCKER.”
The original tweet has since been deleted, and a spokesperson for Twitter confirmed that the comedian had violated the company’s terms of service against advocating violence.
This is not the first time the 59-year-old comedian has done something that can be seen as obliquely threatening the president. In 2017, she posed for a picture during a photoshoot while holding a fake, bloody severed head resembling Trump.
Griffin faced swift backlash for her gross behavior, which included getting fired from her gig co-hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve special.
President Trump tweeted in response that the picture upset his then 11-year-old son, Barron, saying that, “Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself.”
Making threats against the president is a felony that carries a possible sentence of five years in prison.
In response to the backlash, Griffin held a press conference where she tearfully apologized. “I don’t think I will have a career after this.” Griffin also said of the president, “He broke me.”
Griffin also boo-hooed about losing her friendship with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who rebuked the comedian for her actions. “For the record, I am appalled by the photo shoot Kathy Griffin took part in. It is clearly disgusting and completely inappropriate,” he tweeted at the time.
Griffin and Cooper had co-hosted CNN’s New Year’s Eve broadcast together for more than a decade, starting in 2007. Following Cooper’s rebuke, Griffin revealed that she ended their friendship.
Later, she said the loss of the friendship still hurts. Maybe the relationship can be healed with an injection of fresh air.
Griffin’s IMDB credits include a role on “Suddenly Susan,” a sitcom that ran on NBC from 1996 to 2000 starring Brook Shields. She also voiced the Alice character on the animated Dilbert, a TV version of Scott Adams’ Dilbert comic strip. Griffin starred on the reality show “My Life on the D-List” about her struggle to make it in Hollywood.
CORRECTION: Article previously stated that the Protecting Seniors with Diabetes event was on May 27 instead of the corrected May 26.
She is UGLY Inside and Out
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