Rep. Mark Sanford (R-SC) on Thursday pinned “partial” blame for the highly charged political climate in the United States on President Donald Trump.
In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” centered on the shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice Wednesday, which left Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and a lobbyist for Tyson Foods in critical condition, Sanford reflected on the political atmosphere Trump cultivated throughout his campaign for president, especially at what the congressman called Trump’s “bizarre” rallies.
“I would argue that the President has unleashed — is partially — again, not totally, but partially to blame for demons that have been unleashed,” Sanford said. “Whether it’s what I saw at a senior center back home, in people saying ‘F you and F you and F you’ to each other at a senior center? At a retirement center where they’re going to see each other playing croquet the next day?”
“Or with what happened — again, not with what happened yesterday, but the fact that you’ve got the top guy saying ‘Well, I wish I could hit you in the face, and if not, why don’t you and I’ll pay your legal fees?’ that’s bizarre,” he continued. “We ought to call it as such. And what I’ve said back home, when some of these people have been frankly weird and different in a town hall meeting, I’ve said ‘What is going on?’ And they’ll say ‘Look, if the guy at the top can say anything to anybody at any time, why can’t I?’”
“I think we all need to look for ways to learn from what happened yesterday and to say, wait a minute, this is a pause moment,” Sanford concluded. “What might I do a little bit differently in the way that I reach out to other members?”
Watch below via MSNBC:
GOP Rep. Mark Sanford: Trump is “partially to blame for demons that have been unleashed” with his rhetoric. —via @Morning_Joe @MarkHalperin pic.twitter.com/ZEkRelOAk8
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) June 15, 2017
