FROM BREITBART: On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports,” MSNBC Security and Intelligence Analyst Christopher O’Leary discussed the shooting at an ICE facility in Texas and said that while people should tone down their rhetoric, “you also have to start looking at what policies you’ve implemented and what tactics you’re using, because, if you tone down the rhetoric, but you leave those other pieces in place, nothing’s going to change.”
O’Leary stated, “So, terrorism is theater. It’s intended to influence an audience beyond its immediate victims. It’s putting a message out. And terrorism falls into really three categories: It’s either religiously motivated, ideologically motivated, or, in this case, politically motivated. And the politically motivated ones, it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
“It happens because conditions have been set that people start acting out against.”
O’Leary said the conditions are “distrust in institutions.”
“That’s been building for quite some time,” he continued. “Attacks on institutions, the wealth gap, oppressive policies… At least this is what people perceive, and then the militarization of ICE and other federal law enforcement, the wearing of the masks, the aggressive tactics. So, the people who are starting to act out against this feel it’s their only recourse.
“Again, this is predictable. We see this happening throughout our history and in other places as well. So, we can tone down the rhetoric, and that’s the right message. But you also have to start looking at what policies you’ve implemented and what tactics you’re using, because, if you tone down the rhetoric, but you leave those other pieces in place, nothing’s going to change,” he said.
WATCH:
Former FBI agent Christopher O’Leary is on MSNBC telling Trump to bend the knee and stop the deportations of people here illegally, or the attacks will not only continue, but they will escalate. pic.twitter.com/TlqR9PbnBx
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) September 24, 2025
In another interview, O’Leary continued to point to the right as he commented about the shooting. O’Leary blamed the Trump administration for the shooting in one interview. First, he criticized FBI Director Kash Patel for rushing to provide information, saying local authorities and the FBI put out one message with “necessary,” “limited,” and “appropriate” information for the public, but then Patel released a photo of bullet casings found at the scene with “ANTI-ICE” written on them. The fractured messaging is “not traditional,” O’Leary said, and “not helpful.”
He went on to say that calls to stop the rhetoric are “correct,” but he pointed to what he sees as the root of the issue. He said for the last decade, we’ve seen messaging attacking institutions, telling the public institutions can’t be trusted, and “spreading disinformation, misinformation, and conspiracy theories,” which created the polarization in society that leads to these types of violent solutions. (Note: He did not say that corruption in these institutions is to blame, but the calling out of the corruption.)
He then blasted ICE, saying, “All of those things have set the conditions for where we are now. And then you throw in the aggressive tactics that ICE has employed and the wearing of masks, that’s where you get political violence coming from,” O’Leary said.
“Political violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s in response to a real or perceived grievance that somebody has, and they think that this is the best outlet. And that is not justifying it, it’s just where you see these pockets of violence emerge. It’s in response to something.”
He said the problem is a “failure of leadership … on both sides,” and that “correcting some of the policies that are driving these grievances” is necessary.
He said while we may see continued attacks from left groups, he warned that “right groups” may mobilize in response.
He said the “right groups” have been quiet recently, mainly because their messaging has been normalized by the Trump administration, “but we may see them mobilize to protect ICE facilities.”
In a third interview, O’Leary noted that a whitesupremacist appears to have inspired the recent violent acts.
He warned about people emulating these attacks, noting that putting writing on the rounds originated with white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people on March 15, 2019 in New Zealand at the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre. Tarrant, a native of Australia, wrote messages on the guns and magazines he used. The messages, written in white, named events, people, and motifs related to clashes between Muslims and Christians.
O’Leary said seeing the same type of message delivery system coming from “potentially the other side of the political spectrum is a little strange.”
“If you are trying to carry out some kind of message countering more extreme right-wing stuff, I don’t know why you would use a tactic that a famous white supremacist – who has been revered and copy-catted over the years by other white supremacists – why you would do that.”
He said it comes down to messaging and terrorism – they want people to know why they are doing what they’ve done.
“Terrorism is theater,” he said.
