February 24 2026, 08:15 
Out Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent raged at people who said “f**k Trump” on Sunday, blaming them for a gunman who was shot to death while trying to enter Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
“They are normalizing this violence. It’s gotta stop,” Bessent told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo. “This venom from the left really has to stop. They normalize this violence.”
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At 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, 21-year-old Austin T. Martin of Cameron, North Carolina, was shot to death by Secret Service agents and a Sheriff’s deputy as he tried to enter Mar-A-Lago while carrying a shotgun and fuel. A spokesperson for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said that Martin “raised the shotgun to a shooting position” and agents fired at him to “neutralize the threat.”
Martin was a cisgender, straight, white man without any prior run-ins with law enforcement. His family has been described as “big Trump supporters,” and he was called “a good kid” by people who spoke to the AP. It’s unclear whether authorities know his motive, and if they do, they have not made that information public.
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But Bessent claims to know: Martin was radicalized by an ad where people said “F**k Trump.”
Bessent was referring to an ad from Illinois Lt. Gov. and Senate candidate Juliana Stratton (D), which features several people denouncing the current president. In the ad, Stratton says she is “not scared of a wannabe dictator. I’m running for Senate to stand up to Donald Trump” and that she wants to hold “Trump accountable for the crimes he’s committed.”
Bessent called the ad “profane” and said that it is “normalizing” violence against Republicans.
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