It took about a nanosecond for Democrats to start blaming Republicans for the brutal hammer attack on Paul Pelosi by a deranged man early Friday morning.
Immediately and collectively, the left ran with the narrative that violent right-wing rhetoric had inspired the attacker — identified by police as 42-year-old David DePape, reported to be a mentally ill nudist activist — to break into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco residence and fracture the skull of her 82-year-old husband.
Margaret Brennan, host of the CBS News Sunday morning show “Face the Nation,” was loaded for bear as she greeted Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Two days prior to the attack, Emmer had tweeted a brief clip of himself firing a rifle at a shooting range with the caption, “Enjoyed exercising my Second Amendment rights with @KellyCooperAZ & General @JackBergman_MI1. … 13 days to make history. Let’s #FirePelosi.”
Enjoyed exercising my Second Amendment rights with @KellyCooperAZ & General @JackBergman_MI1.
13 days to make history. Let’s #FirePelosi. pic.twitter.com/QgSpjkApIz
— Tom Emmer (@tomemmer) October 26, 2022
Right off the bat, a clearly agitated and adversarial Brennan asked Emmer, “just to be abundantly clear,” if he’d “denounce any kind of attack on the Pelosi family.”
Emmer replied, “Absolutely. There should be no attacks, period. There should be no violence in our society. Again, whether it’s political or otherwise, there’s no place for it in a civilized society.”
Next, Brennan referenced a CBS poll that she said found many Republicans were suspicious about the integrity of elections.
“A big majority of Republicans support the idea of private citizens challenging election officials as they process and report vote counts on election night,” she said. “We’re seeing that on the screen now. Two-thirds of Republicans support the idea of private citizens patrolling around ballot drop boxes and polling places.
“This is just Republicans. We don’t see this with Democrats. We do not see this with independents. Would you urge private citizens not to patrol polling places?”
“Well, you picked the words, Margaret,” Emmer responded. “I would say that it is Republicans, Democrats, independents, all American citizens are very acutely aware … about our election process. I think this is going to be a very good election because people are awake. They’re paying attention.
“They should volunteer as poll watchers. It’s a state-based system. Whatever your state requires and allows, you should definitely be involved. And I think it’s going to help the process.”
And again, she wanted “just to be abundantly clear” that “poll watching is different than voter intimidation, which is unlawful.”
“Nobody should be intimidated when they’re exercising their most precious right to vote,” Emmer responded.
After rephrasing the question several more times to make sure the congressman didn’t support voter intimidation, Brennan told him he was on a list of “307 Republicans running for office who have raised doubts about the integrity of the election.”
“Do you regret sowing doubts yourself?” she said.
As Emmer tried to answer the question, Brennan repeatedly interrupted him.
“What you’re referring to,” he said, “I’ve never sowed doubts about the election. I have definitely raised questions –”
She interjected, “You signed onto this Texas amicus brief –”
“Absolutely, let’s talk about that –”
Again, Brennan interrupted, “– that went to the Supreme Court to overturn it.”
“What it said was, Margaret, what that said, that amicus brief, is that a lot of people, governors, attorneys general, secretaries of state, took unilateral action during COVID changing –” (Interruption.) “– changing the election laws themselves –” (Interruption.)
“Again, if I can finish, changing election laws themselves to try and make sure that we were safe while we exercised our right to vote,” Emmer said. “That particular amicus brief, all it said was that we need to reaffirm that state legislatures and legislatures alone make their election laws. So as we go forward, once we’re out of COVID, we have to go back to that.”
“So to be clear,” Brennan asked, “you don’t consider yourself an election denier?”
“Absolutely not.”
She asked three more times just to be sure.
“Eight out of 10 Americans right now think we’re on the wrong track,” Emmer said. “That’s what they’re going to be voting on.”
“I know,” Brennan said dramatically. “And I would love to talk about something other than people being worried for their lives. But unfortunately, that’s where we are.”
“I want to ask you about this when it comes to political violence,” she continued, bringing up his Twitter post. “Why is there a gun in a political ad at all?”
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Note the petulant tone in her voice as she said the word “gun.”
The congressman rightly pointed out, “It wasn’t an ad. I was tweeting out –”
Abruptly, Brennan asked, “Wouldn’t a pink slip be more fitting if it’s about firing her?”
In between what more resembled badgering than journalism, Emmer reminded her of the supporter of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders who shot Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise at a congressional baseball practice in 2017 and said he didn’t recall Brennan “or anyone else in the media trying to blame Democrats for what happened. … Nobody tried to equate Democrats’ rhetoric — people –”
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