{"id":298824,"date":"2026-06-07T00:55:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T00:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/298824\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T00:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T00:55:17","slug":"byron-donalds-speaks-out-after-death-threats-warns-that-irresponsible-rhetoric-emboldens-people-with-real-mental-health-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/298824\/","title":{"rendered":"Byron Donalds speaks out after death threats, warns that irresponsible rhetoric emboldens people with ‘real mental health issues’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gubernatorial candidate\u00a0Byron Donalds<\/a> is speaking out about threats on his life as he runs for the Republican nomination in the August primary.<\/p>\n

Donalds, a Naples Republican in his third term in Congress, faced one threat on social media last month as he re-shared President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> endorsement in the Governor\u2019s race. A second person called Donalds\u2019 district office<\/a> making similar threats, saying he was \u201cgoing to blow up the entire office.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody just flat out said they were going to kill me,\u201d Donalds told radio host Mark Levin<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

Donalds noted that people have strong opinions, but that recent experience shows examples of viewpoints being used to justify political violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn politics, everybody needs to understand we all have very strong opinions and stuff like that, but at the end of the day, people just want to go home and see their families whether you\u2019re running for office, whether you\u2019re an activist, (or a commentator),\u201d Donalds said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He cited the assassination of conservative Charlie Kirk last year as an example of \u201cwhat happens when you get to the point where all you want to do is just demonize your opponents and not really treat them as human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are always trying to find ways to get more attention and get more likes and all that kind of stuff. But when all you do is just demonize somebody to the point where you\u2019re treating them as if they\u2019re going to destroy Florida or anything like that. All you\u2019re doing is giving an opening to somebody who has real mental health issues to try to do something crazy like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donalds considers himself a free speech \u201cabsolutist,\u201d but stresses the importance of being \u201cmindful\u201d of how things are being said, so as not to \u201ccreate an environment where somebody\u2019s going to take that as their responsibility to save whatever they\u2019re trying to do, and they go take somebody else\u2019s life. That\u2019s just reprehensible to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donalds said the incident \u201cstrengthened (his) resolve for working incredibly hard to be the state\u2019s next Governor and to keep Florida free and keep Florida the preeminent conservative and common sense state in all of America.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is undeterred by the threats, promising to \u201ckeep going\u201d and expressing confidence in his position in the race for the nomination to succeed\u00a0Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gubernatorial candidate\u00a0Byron Donalds is speaking out about threats on his life as he runs for the Republican nomination…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[445,125708,28,30,29,82568],"class_list":["post-298824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-byron-donalds","tag-death-threats","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-mark-levin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}