After hearing that State Senate Republicans had issued a resolution calling for his arrest, along with 13 AWOL Wisconsin Dems, Chris Larson (D) said the state GOP is creating a ‘police state.’
On MSNBC’s The Last Word Thursday night, Larson had an intense debate with GOP State Sen. Glenn Grothman, who had appeared on the show earlier in the week calling some protestors in the capitol building “slobs.”
Larson, to put it lightly, disputed that sentiment.
“There are police officers, there are firefighters, and there are teachers,” he said. “The people who teach our children, and I think it’s unfortunate that the right wing and the republicans in the senate are going to call them slobs.”
Grothman was unmoved.
“Senator Larson is to a certain extent intentionally misconstruing my comments and what’s going on,” he said. “It is true, you can always get in the capitol if you have somebody you want to meet. However, when I talked about slobs, I talked about the people who are there overnight when other people aren’t there. And those people were very disheveled.”
Later, host Lawrence O’Donnell asked Larson if he or any of his Dem colleagues planned to head back to Madison after the GOP’s “use of force” resolution was issued to compel their return.
“I think it’s unfortunate that the Senate Republicans have gone around the bend on this one,” he said. “They’re trying to send the police after us, taking police off the streets, and go to their beck and call. They shut off the legislative hotline because they’ve heard enough from people calling in. Then these people wouldn’t go away, so they shut them out of the capitol. And then they took over our offices and are fining us $100 a day. And that’s not enough. so now they’re sending the police after us.”
Larsson added: “I think it sends a scary message that we’re moving toward being a police state because we don’t agree with their policies.”
Watch the video below:
