The packages, which contained potentially destructive devices, were sent to the likes of Democratic donor George Soros, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former US President Barack Obama, among others, between Monday and Wednesday.
Most recently, the FBI has confirmed that in addition to the five original packages that were discovered, authorities were alerted to another five — two sent to Rep. Maxine Waters, one to actor Robert De Niro and two to former US Vice President Joe Biden.
All packages were postmarked with six stamps, had computer printed address labels and had the return address listed as the Florida office of Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former chairperson of the Democratic National Committee.
Since the beginning of the 2016 presidential election cycle, Trump has repeatedly attacked the media, calling organizations such as CNN, the New York Times and NBC News the "Fake News media." Just last week, Trump celebrated Rep. Greg Gianforte's (R-MT) 2017 assault on a Guardian reporter while he spoke at a rally in Montana.
In response to Trump's attacks, media outlets like CNN have struck back at POTUS by adamantly criticizing the president during their news segments, Lauria told hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou. "That's not the role of the media," he stressed.
Since news first surfaced of suspicious packages being mailed across the US, there have been several reports both on mainstream and alternative news sites discussing the question of whether the manila envelopes contained real or fake explosives.
However, regardless of whether they are real or not, they still have power in the sense of instilling fear, Jim Kavanagh, editor of website The Polemicist, told Becker.
"Under any circumstance, it's clearly some kind of bizarre intimidation tactic that's meant to create fear and upset the political [lanscape]… to create a kind of terrifying environment in the political atmosphere," Kavanagh said, before suggesting that this was likely the work of one person. "This is something that has to be investigated and taken seriously."
Acknowledging that the political realm saw an uptick in heated arguments during the 2016 election campaign, Kavanagh told Becker that it was Trump who disrupted the status quo on how politicians and the media conducted themselves.
"I think [Trump] saw there's an enormous amount of anger out there in the populations, and I think that the Democratic elite class didn't want to provoke that, wants to try and manage it in its own way, and Trump disrupted that," he said. "[Trump] tapped right into the anger. Unfortunately he did it in the wrong way… in the right-wing way."
"It's not going to get any better," Kavanagh predicted.
