Scalise: Extremism Should Be Equally Called Out on Both Sides

WASHINGTON, D.C.—House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) delivered remarks at an Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee hearing regarding the spread of disinformation and extremism. Instead of addressing these serious issues, today's hearing focused on government censorship and silencing of political views.

Whip Scalise emphasized the danger of disinformation and extremism in the media by highlighting his personal experience from the baseball shooting where the shooter was motivated by prominent politicians and media personalities. Whip Scalise outlined what leaders and media figures from both parties must do to unequivocally condemn political violence of all kinds.

Full remarks:

"Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for hosting this hearing and our witnesses as well. And clearly, we've all been very vocal in denouncing the events that happened on January 6^th. [January 6^th] is a clear example of not only mob violence, but also how political discourse can get out of control. But for anybody to just try to suggest that discourse started getting out of control on January 6^th 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 14^th, 2017 – a day that a gunman walked onto a baseball field and shot at over a dozen Members of Congress, including myself. There's been a lot of investigation into it. 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. In fact, Mr. Chairman, 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 would like to ask unanimous consent that this be entered into the record, which is some of the FBI excerpts from his writings.

"I enter that not to say that I blame those people that he mentions for his motivation, I say this to let you know that I don't blame those other people, I blame the shooter. The shooter's the one who should be held accountable and I'm very clear about that, but it's an example that we all need to be aware of our rhetoric and 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 6^th 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. Let's be fair and recognize we can all do a better job of encouraging the rhetoric to be toned down – and we all need to call out political violence wherever we see it because it's not acceptable in America from the left or the right. With that I yield back."