As part of a discussion on the rising tide of right-wing political violence that appears to have led to the violent assault on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), longtime political observer David Ignatius claimed it is also affecting moderate Republicans who are afraid to return home to campaign.
Speaking with host Mika Brzezinski, the Washington Post columnist also slammed newly-minted Twitter owner Elon Musk for contributing to the misinformation about the hammer attack in San Francisco last Friday.
"Our election system, its integrity, people's confidence that they won't be attacked or followed when they go to the polls, those are all at risk," he began. "And there needs to be a broad statement that this is intolerable."
"I know a number of Republicans, moderate Republicans in the House and Senate who face threats themselves," he elaborated. "I asked one Republican congressman, could I go home with him to the Midwest to watch him campaign. The answer was, 'no, it's just too crazy out there, it's not possible right now. I'm under attack, I get threats every day.' A lot of Republicans would say the same thing, 'I get threatened, I'm afraid.'"
"It's one reason they don't speak out, and somehow people have got to find the courage to say, this has got to stop, and they've got to do that working closely with the FBI, which is taking this really seriously, which sees across the country the level of threats," he added.
"We've got to pull together, I think, for the safety and well-being of candidates on both sides of the aisle and put the integrity of elections back together," he continued. "So people who are essentially vigilantes aren't trying to run this system, and when somebody like Elon Musk puts out a tweet with no factual basis, he needs to pay a penalty for that. He's the richest man in the world, he just bought this company. He needs to pay a penalty. People needed to jump on him, and he deleted the tweet. That's not enough. People have to say, this is unacceptable if you propose to run this key communications medium."
Watch the video below or at this link.
MSNBC 10 31 2022 06 41 26 youtu.be
