Dingell: Vitriol Is Targeted at GOP Too, Not Just Dems, ‘There’s Enough’ Vitriol ‘From Everybody on Certain Days’

On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) stated that “fear and hatred that is dividing us, pitting us against each other” is a danger to democracy “and it isn’t Democrats that this is just targeted at. It’s targeted at Republicans, Democrats, far right, far left, and local-level officials.”

Dingell stated, “The fear and hatred that is dividing us, pitting us against each other in this country is a real and present danger to our democracy. And I don’t want to see this against anybody, and it isn’t Democrats that this is just targeted at. It’s targeted at Republicans, Democrats, far right, far left, and local-level officials. School board members are wearing bulletproof vests to meetings. This is a real danger, and it’s got to stop.”

Dingell also discussed threats she has faced and said, “I think it sort of began after our president took some — made some strong statements about me, but when I said that men didn’t belong at the State Capitol in Michigan with assault weapons, which occurred before January 6, publicly, I had men outside my home that night with assault weapons. And it’s just — it’s not okay, the kind of threats that my staff get. But other members are getting them.”

She added, “I’m not going to attack anybody today. Because that’s what we keep doing is attacking each other. But I must say to you that when I was attacked a couple of years ago, even Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) defended the things that were said. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) spoke up, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — Mitch McConnell was very clear today that this was not okay. And I think every public official — and I am not pointing fingers at any party, I think that there’s enough [vitriol] coming from everybody on certain days, that every elected public official has got a responsibility to stand up to violence, to try to bring down the temperature and to make it very clear that what happened today, but what’s happening every day in our communities, with people being pitted against each other, isn’t okay.”

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