An evangelical minister went on CNN Monday to deliver a warning to President Donald Trump that his unhinged rants against immigrants and his political foes could get people killed.
During his CNN interview, the Rev. Rob Schenck explained how he has lived with regret and guilt after one of his own followers was inspired by his attacks on abortion providers to go out and murder physician Barnett Slepian in 1998.
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Ever since then, he said he has toned down his rhetoric to avoid using language that dehumanizes other people — and he implored President Trump to do the same.
“When I would use those words of contempt, calling individuals who performed abortions as monsters or animals or other words that dehumanize them, those people received those words very differently, and they took them as license to do what they thought had to be done, and that included murder,” Schenck said. “Eventually, as a religious man, I had to repent of that and revisit my use of public language. It’s a very, very powerful and potentially dangerous tool.”
Later in the interview, Schenck was asked whether Trump’s words have already inspired political violence — and he said it was definitely possible.
“Sadly, I think they could very well have contributed, especially to the tragedy in El Paso, perhaps in other places as well, because, again, people hear what they want to hear,” he said. “You know, the president may think that everyone thinks the way he does, that they could never take his words as permission to go out and hurt people that he calls ‘criminals’ and ‘murderers’ and ‘invaders’ and ‘bad people,’ but he can never control that.”
Watch the video below.
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"Monday’s split-screen drama, as the House Judiciary Committee weighed impeachment charges against President Trump and as the Justice Department’s inspector general released a 476-page report on the FBI’s handling of its 2016 investigation into Trump’s campaign, made one truth of the modern world inescapable: The lies and obfuscations forwarded ad infinitum on Fox News pose a dangerous threat to the national security of the United States," he wrote.
In an interview with CNN International's Becky Anderson at the Doha Forum in Qatar, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) admitted he has no plans to look at the evidence compiled against Donald Trump from the House impeachment inquiry when it is referred to the Senate.
The chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee explained that he wants the trial to be quick and that expects nothing to come of it, with the GOP solidly behind fighting impeachment of the president.
During the interview Graham stated, "This thing will come to the Senate, and it will die quickly, and I will do everything I can to make it die quickly."
On CNN Saturday, Democratic strategist Maria Cardona and Republican strategist Doug Heye clashed after the latter suggested Democrats should value their re-election over holding President Donald Trump accountable for wrongdoing.
"We have to remember, this is not a trial as we think of trials in courtroom," said Heye. "This is a political process. It is designed to be a political process, and that's why this whole process is played out the way that it has so far. I would say to Maria, the Republicans aren't spending money to shore up Republicans per se. They're spending money to go after vulnerable Democrats who are going home and then coming back and telling Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leadership, I'm getting killed back home."