Jeh Johnson: Biden Had Obligation to Call Out ‘MAGA Republican’ ‘Temptation Toward Violence’

Former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Thursday on MSNBC’s “All In” that President Joe Biden had an obligation to call out “temptation toward violence” of so-called “MAGA Republicans.”

Johnson said, “In the wake of Mar-a-Lago, and the wake of the attack of the FBI field office. I believe that President Biden felt like he had an obligation to give that speech. I felt it was notable that he mentioned Donald Trump by name, something he rarely does. I think it’s notable that he called out ‘MAGA Republicans’ for not telling the truth, for not respecting the Constitution, for not respecting the rule of law, and for not respecting the will of the people. It was a blunt and direct speech.”

He continued, “If I were in office today as Secretary of Homeland Security, it might be my number one concern that brewing just below the surface is a very large degree of unrest and a temptation toward violence. There are polls out that suggest that large percentages of Americans are prepared to resort to violence if they feel that the election was stolen. There are large percentages of Americans who ascribe to the QAnon theory. This is brewing just below the surface. With the attack on the FBI, with the rhetoric, this president obviously feels an obligation that I think the president should feel to take on this issue, call out the violence, call out the attacks on the institutions of his government. That something that the last president ran away from, frankly, and went in the opposite direction.”

He added, “This is a problem that the domestic unrest lies just below the surface, that it could boil over it any moment like it did just a couple of weeks ago, and certainly on January 6, is something that we cannot look away from. We have to take it on directly.”

Johnson concluded, “His remarks were directed at those Americans who are independents, those Americans who are Republicans but not MAGA Republicans, not prone to go down this rabbit hole.”

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