Gillibrand: Trump ‘Has Truly Emboldened White Supremacy and Hate Crimes Across This Country’

Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) accused President Donald Trump of having “truly emboldened white supremacy and hate crimes across this country.”

Partial transcript as follows:

BRENNAN: So when talking about white supremacy, you and some of your colleagues and competitors have been linking the president’s rhetoric to emboldening white supremacists. You said “he is emboldening white supremacists his entire presidency and his campaign.” Are you actually saying that President Trump is responsible for the killings in El Paso and Ohio?

GILLIBRAND: What I’m saying is that his words have consequences and the words he has been using have been hateful and divisive and racist and has truly emboldened white supremacy and hate crimes across this country. Since President Trump’s been elected hate crimes have increased- certainly across my state and across the country- against all groups. More racism, more anti-Semitism, more white supremacy, more anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-refugees. And it’s changing who we are as a nation. And that’s one of the reasons I’m running for president–

BRENNAN: But- but in terms of that–

GILLIBRAND: -we need a president who will bring us back together again.

BRENNAN: –in terms of the name calling and putting it in the political context. Don’t you think that is ratcheting up the rhetoric rather than having cooler heads prevail?

GILLIBRAND: What President Trump has done is ratchet up the rhetoric. When he’s at a rally in Florida and someone says “What are you going to do with immigrants” and someone shouts “kill them, shoot them” President Trump laughed. So he is not leading us in the right direction. He has used words like infestation. He’s used words like invasion. That is creating a climate where people are- literally today fueled by anger and hate. They are hunting down other people using weapons of war. That’s what we’re up against right now. And President Trump will not stand up to the NRA, will not stand up to the gun manufacturers–

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