Back in late March of this year, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson went absolutely nuclear on the far-left Democrats for what he saw as them trying to rile up public anger to the point of encouraging political violence, saying that such rhetoric was extremely irresponsible and dangerous in the context of America’s already heightened tensions.
As background, while Democrats were initially shocked and bewildered to the point of near-inaction by President Trump’s election and whirlwind of executive actions targeting everything from the USAID-NGO complex to the illegal immigration regime, their bewilderment and inaction soon turned into anger and violent rhetoric of the sort that Speaker Johnson called out in his March 25 statement on the matter.
Calling out Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in particular for his irresponsible rhetoric in which he encouraged leftist activists and protesters to wreak havoc to show their displeasure with Trump, Speaker Johnson said, “Chuck Schumer engaged in a lot of unusual activity last week, but among the most concerning was his invitation to activists nationwide…”
Continuing by quoting the New York Senator’s awful comments, Speaker Johnson said, “This is what he said on that particular program: ‘We are mobilizing in New York. We have people going to the Republican districts and going after these Republicans who are voting for this and forcing them to either change their vote or face the consequences.’”
Then, relating that to past irresponsible comments that Sen. Schumer has made, such as when he threatened Supreme Court Justices over a ruling they were issuing, Speaking Johnson said, “It was reminiscent of the threats he made to Supreme Court Justices a year and a half ago or so on the steps of the Supreme Court.”
Still not done, Rep. Johnson then noted that rhetoric like that pushed by Sen. Schumer was already leading to violence, saying, “It’s dangerous rhetoric. And that message was received. We had far left activists go into some of these events, they engaged in a physical altercation at at least one of them, Representative Lawler in New York, just hours after he made that call to action.”
Demanding that the notorious pushers of radical and violent rhetoric stop and recant, he then said, “This isn’t just a problem in that state, it’s a problem across the country. And we had members who were rightfully concerned about threats of physical violence at their events and in their districts, in some cases, they even went to events for their children at school. It’s gotten out of hand…So I’m calling on Leader Schumer and Leader Jeffries in the House to put an end to this, to explain that threats of violence and intimidation like that is not an acceptable form of political protest.”
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Concluding that portion of his speech and distinguishing what message the Democrats have pushed from free speech, Speaker Johnson then said, “We all believe in free speech. I used to defend it in courts, but this is something very different and it’s a very serious situation, and they need to get control of that.”
Watch him here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video