• 5 months ago
During remarks at the Republican National Convention, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) answered questions on the recent assassination attempt against former President Trump.

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Transcript
00:00got a problem. So, on that note, we've heard a lot from President Biden since the assassination
00:06attempt on President Trump's life. He's given speeches and been on TV, and he is calling for
00:14unity. I'm wondering what you think about his calls for unity and how they should be interpreted.
00:20This is one of my pet peeves in politics. And you see it elsewhere to a degree, but my general
00:27rule of thumb is that when someone is speaking from a position of immense power, as he certainly
00:33is, a call for unity, unless it's accompanied by a description, an explanation, a formula,
00:40a prescription for how you get to unity, something that actually can and does tend to unify people,
00:47if you don't have that, then it's manipulation. It's a passive, aggressive
00:53backdoor way of saying, everyone unite behind me. Now, I think he had a real missed opportunity,
01:01because he could have. I think this is the kind of moment where a President of the United States can
01:05and should say, hey, let's all get united at least around a couple of things. And here's what those
01:11things are. And here's what I'm going to do for my part in order to do that. I think that could
01:16have helped. Now, I have thought, and I thought since moments after the shooting took place,
01:21that one of the ways he could stop, I think everybody can agree that it'd be good to find
01:26ways in which we bring down the temperature a little bit. I think one way that he could have
01:30done that would have been to signal that he was directing Jack Smith to withdraw the federal
01:37prosecutions against Trump and that he was going to make requests of the governors of New York
01:42and Georgia for them to do the same. I think that's the kind of thing, the unifying principles,
01:49saying here's what we should unite behind, and here's what I'm personally going to do to get
01:52there. It's a missed opportunity that didn't go down that direction.
01:55Yeah. I keep on thinking, I mean, we all know how politics is, and all's fair in politics,
02:02love and war.
02:03It's all fair. Oh, yes.
02:06But you definitely have heated rhetoric from a lot of people. You'll hear Donald Trump call
02:13Joe Biden Sleepy Joe, and you hear Joe Biden say that all conservatives are a threat to the
02:20republic or a threat to democracy, a genuine threat, a literal threat, that they are seeking
02:25to destroy America, to destroy all of our freedoms. And so in addition to what you suggested, I think
02:33he personally should address the extremely awful and inappropriate rhetoric that has been coming
02:41from him. You might remember that red wedding speech that he gave where he said that all
02:47Republicans were a threat to the republic. You know, this is very serious stuff that's
02:52unbecoming of a president. And I understand that they insult, and certainly, you know,
02:56certainly Donald Trump insults. But there's a manner in how you insult, too, that is really
03:01important.
03:02The red wedding speech. OK, I just cut that.
03:04Yeah. Do you remember with the Marines on his side, and it was red in the back,
03:09and he was saying that we needed to do whatever it took to destroy half the country.
03:16So nothing says I'm not a fascist quite like speaking against a backdrop like that
03:21and threatening to imprison your political opponents.
03:24But just.

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