The White House responded to a video Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) posted to Twitter, saying “there is no place for any type of violence.”
The manipulated anime video shows Gosar attacking Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and President Joe Biden.
During a press briefing Tuesday, White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked if the administration has a position on whether social media companies should be moderating this type of content.
Jean-Pierre responded, “There is absolutely no place for any violence of any sort in this political system.”
She added, “I don’t want to go any further than that. I leave it to the social media platform for how they’re going to move forward on that. But there is no place for any type of violence or that type of language in the political system and it should not be happening and we should be condemning it.”
Watch the press briefing below:
The video included images of other lawmakers, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.).
Twitter added a disclaimer to the tweet, saying, “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about hateful conduct. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”
Several lawmakers weighed in on Gosar’s post, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), as IJR reported.
“First of all, he has no business being in Congress. He should have never been elected. He doesn’t belong there,” Schiff said during an appearance on “The View.”
He continued, “And sadly, the Republican conference is now characterized by numerous kooks and dangerous cranks of which he is one. And when you consider where the leadership of that conference is, they’re talking today about removing from committees Republicans who voted for a bipartisan infrastructure bill…And why is that such an offense? Because it contradicts their strategy of making Joe Biden a failure.”
