Kathy Griffin sparks outrage by tweeting President Trump should 'inject air'

Kathy Griffin has sparked controversy after tweeting that President Donald Trump should inject himself with air.

The comedian was previously investigated by the Secret Service for posting a picture of a fake Trump’s decapitated head in 2017.

And many people have been tweeting the Secret Service to get involved again, after Kathy’s latest joke.

The 59-year-old made the comment in response to a tweet from CNN’s chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta, which read: ‘Trump at diabetes event at WH: “I don’t use insulin. Should I be?”’

Griffin quote-tweeted the post: ‘Syringe with nothing but air inside it would do the trick.

‘F*** TRUMP.’

The comic was referring to an air embolism, which is caused by air bubbles entering the body’s circulatory system. 

The injection, which can block blood vessels, can prove fatal.

Thousands of responses tagged Twitter, the Department of Justice and the US Secret Service, claiming Griffin had made a ‘direct threat’ towards the President of the United States. 

Others called Kathy a ‘disgrace’ while calling for her to be investigated, with Griffin’s name trending on Twitter. 

However, the star has not backed down on her comments. 

Posting a screengrab of a tweet from Trump in relation to Twitter adding a fact-check label to his statement about mail-in ballots for the election, reading: ‘Twitter is stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!’, she wrote: ‘I feel pretty goddamn superior now knowing I know a hell of a lot more about the #firstamendment than the, than this mushroom..’

And in response to a Washington Post tweet reading: ‘@KathyGriffin advocates for someone to stab @realDonaldTrump with syringe full of air’, Griffin tweeted: ‘I SURE DID, F***ER. 

#TrumpLiedPeopleDied.’

Twitter told the DC Examiner that they will ‘look into’ whether Griffin’s tweets violated their violent threats policy and breaking news editor for the paper Daniel Chaitin added they had reached out to the Secret Service – causing Griffin to tweet: ‘Go f*** yourself. Do you wanna tussle with me, you f***ing amateur? #100ThousandDead.’

Griffin was referring to the figure of deaths from coronavirus in the United States, with the death toll passing the 100,000 mark.

Twitter defines violent threats as ‘statements of an intent to kill or inflict serious physical harm on a specific person or group of people’.

Their policy reads: ‘We define intent to include statements like “I will”, “I’m going to”, or “I plan to”, as well as conditional statements like “If you do X, I will”.’

In 2017, Griffin caused major controversy after posing for a gory photo shoot showing her holding up a fake decapitated Trump head.

Following the backlash, the My Life On The D-List star asked the photographer Tyler Shields to remove the pic from the collaboration, and apologised on social media: ‘I’m just now seeing the reaction of these images. I’m a comic, I crossed the line. I moved the line and then I crossed it. I went way too far.

‘The image is too disturbing.I understand how it affects people. It wasn’t funny, I get it. I beg for your forgiveness.’

However, the comic was essentially blacklisted in the industry and was investigated by the Secret Service.

Griffin claims she was on the no fly list for two months before she was cleared, telling Jimmy Kimmel in 2019: ‘I was on the no-fly list for two months, I was interrogated under oath…they were considering very seriously charging me with the crime of conspiracy to assassinate the president of the United States.

‘I will say this, I am not anti-government at all after this experience. I think the FBI saved my life. I was not only on the MAGA bomber’s list, but…the FBI did something they call a ‘no-knock’ to my house, where it’s such an imminent threat, they don’t even call, they came right over.

‘They said during the interrogation of Cesar Sayoc [who posted explosive devices to prominent Trump critics and Democrats in 2018], he admitted that he shared the kill list, which I’m on, with like-minded people. So it’s an ongoing thing, and it’s just part of my new normal.’

This scandal comes two months after Kathy’s mother Maggie died aged 99 on St Patrick’s Day. 

Metro.co.uk has contacted Twitter and Griffin’s rep for comment.