Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday told NBC News that former president Donald Trump’s shooting on Saturday is evidence that Americans need to “turn the rhetoric down.”
“We’re all Americans, and we have to treat one another with dignity and respect,” Johnson said while casting some blame on President Joe Biden, who told supporters on a campaign call last week that it was time to refocus the presidential race away from his age and back onto Trump.
Part of the president’s remarks on the call included comments like, “We can’t waste any more time being distracted. I have one job, and that’s to beat Donald Trump. … I’m absolutely certain I’m the best person to be able to do that,” and “It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”
“I mean, I know that he didn’t mean what is being implied there,” Johnson said Sunday about Biden’s comments, but added, “That kind of language on either side should be called out.”
“We can have vigorous debate, but it needs to end there,” Johnson said.
Republicans like senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita and members of the House Judiciary Committee have pointed to Biden’s comments over the last 24 hours as adding fuel to the fire ahead of Saturday’s shooting.
On Sunday, Biden spoke from Delaware and condemned all political violence, saying, "“It’s sick. It’s sick. It’s one of the reasons we have to unite this country ... We cannot condone this.”
And commenting directly on the allegations that Biden incited violence against Trump, an aide to the president told NBC News, that the president has often spoken, "condemning political violence and saying it can never happen, before and during the presidency.”
Johnson also pointed to media coverage and public discussions about Trump. “There’s no figure in American history, at least in the modern era, maybe since Lincoln, who’s been so vilified and really persecuted by the media, Hollywood elites, political figures, you know, even the legal system,” Johnson told “TODAY” show hosts Savannah Guthrie and Willie Geist on Sunday.
He added that “when the message goes out constantly that the election of Donald Trump would be a threat to democracy, that the republic would end, I mean it, it heats up the environment.”
Still, Johnson added that he expects Trump to return to the campaign trail soon and to draw on “an inexhaustible reservoir of energy and strength.”
“He’ll keep fighting,” Johnson added.
