Rep. Steve Scalise Reminds Democrats of Attempted Assassination by Leftist

As Democrats try to capitalize on the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Republican minority whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) reminded his colleagues that leftist rhetoric inspired the congressional baseball game shooting of 2017, which almost resulted in the congressman losing his life.

“Clearly we’ve all been very vocal in denouncing the events that happened on January 6th, a clear example of not only mob violence but also about how political discourse can get out of control.”

“For anyone to just try to suggest that discourse just started getting out of control on January 6th would be disingenuous, when you look at where we’ve gotten and how far this has come.”

“I want to take you back to June 14th 2017, a day when a gunman walked onto a baseball field and shot at a dozen members of congress including myself.”

“The FBI did a report. The gunman was motivated by hyper-charged rhetoric that he was hearing from the left. From high, prominent elected officials as well as media personalities.”

“There is a report that the FBI did where they included some of the writings of the gunman where he talked specifically about the people who motivated him and inspired him to commit this shooting, which would have been very deadly if he was successful without the bravery and heroism of the Capitol Police.”

“I say this to let you know that I don’t blame those other people, I blame the shooter. The shooter is the one who should be held accountable, and I’ve been very clear about that, but it’s an example that we all need to be aware of our rhetoric, we can all be doing a better job of toning down the rhetoric, but we also need to call it out where we see it, not just on the other side of the aisle but on both sides.”

“Just as I called out January 6th activities, I called out the violence I saw over the summer, when through hyper-charged rhetoric, people were burning down cities, were killing cops, killing other people. Let’s be consistent in calling it out, not trying to suggest disingenuously that it only comes from one side of the political spectrum… It’s not acceptable from the left or the right.”

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.