Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) refused on NBC this morning to condemn violent political language and imagery, including his former running mate’s use of cross hairs to identify targeted Democrats and suggestion that voters “reload.”
“I have seen the rhetoric of ‘targeted districts’ as long as I’ve been in politics,” McCain said. “Please! Any threat of violence is terrible, but to say that there’s a ‘targeted district’ or that we ‘reload’ or ‘go back into the fight again’ — please.”
“Those are fine,” McCain said.
NBC’s Ann Curry pressed him.
“Should this still be the language of this day given how much we’re hearing about hundreds of calls regarding threats, about vandalism, about the gas line of a congressman’s brother’s home being cut. Sir, these are very dangerous times. Is this the language that we should be hearing today?”
McCain: “The language that we should be using today is the language that we are using.”
Here’s the video:
