Former Rare Staff
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), long one of the biggest defenders of President Donald Trump, told reporters on Wednesday that the morning’s shooting outside Washington, D.C., was emblematic of violence coming from “the left.”
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On Wednesday morning, a man, since identified as 66-year-old James Hodgkinson, opened fire on a group of congressman and senators practicing for a charity softball game. Hodgkinson wounded several people, including Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).
Rep. King tore into his political opponents after he arrived at the crime scene to pray for the victims.
“America has been divided,” Rep. King (R-Iowa) told reporters.
“And the center of America is disappearing, and the violence is appearing in the streets, and it’s coming from the left.”
King’s interview occurred before President Donald Trump announced to the nation that the shooter had been killed. King didn’t seem to care whether the shooter lived or died.
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“If he were on his way to the morgue, it wouldn’t make me sorry at all.”
King later drew a comparison to protests surrounding President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the shooter’s possible motives and the political divide in Washington, D.C.
“The divisions within the country, people that can’t accept the results of the election that are determined to try to take this country down, take this organization down,” King said. “This city was filled up with demonstrations the day after the inauguration, where you couldn’t drive down the streets. And we’ve had demonstrations every week since then, sometimes different topics.”
