Former GOP official: Trump emboldened assassinations by floating pardons for January 6 defendants

On Friday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat," former Republican staffer Kurt Bardella weighed in on the brutal attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband that left him hospitalized.

The attacker was looking for Pelosi herself — and, said Bardella, none of this is an accident.

"Kurt, your initial thoughts when you heard that the attacker was asking, 'Where is Nancy,' telling law enforcement, 'We're waiting for Nancy,'" said anchor Katie Phang. "It echoes the demands on January 6th when they were attacking the United States Capitol."

"You know, my first thought, Katie, was the America — is this is the country that the Republican Party wants us to live in?" said Bardella. "When you hold up domestic terrorists like those that participate in January 6th as heroes, when you call them political prisoners when you say they should be pardoned for participating in that active insurrection, you are sending the message loud and clear that violence is what you want. That trial by combat is what you want."

Violent attacks and threats against lawmakers is the natural conclusion of this sentiment, argued Bardella. And nor, he said, is this even the only such incident that occurred this week.

"We have seen, time and again, that these people will listen to these leaders who are espousing these dangerous views, and they will act on them, whether it is through what happened in San Francisco, or even today, we also found out through SDNY that someone pled guilty to threatening to murder the staff and Congressman Eric Swalwell," said Bardella. "These things are happening across this country, and the Republican Party is further seeping themselves into this extremism, into this radicalism. and the more they continue to do that, the more they pander to this group, the more they call domestic terrorist tourists on a regular day in the Capitol, the more this will happen."

Watch below or at this link.

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