There’s ‘No Place’ in America for Political Violence, Scalise Says

There is “no place” in American politics for the “violence” and “call to arms” that led a man to pull a switchblade on a California GOP congressional candidate over the weekend, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Wednesday on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

“There’s no place for this in American politics,” Scalise said. “The foundation of this country is about free and open debate. We encourage it. We ultimately placed into the Bill of Rights the First Amendment to allow people the freedom of speech — to even criticize their government — but not to resort to violence.”

“We actually resolve our political differences at the ballot box in America. It’s what we’ve always been about,” he continued. “And this violence, the incitefulness [sic] — the call to arms, in essence, amongst liberals — has to stop.”

Scalise was critically wounded in the hip during a GOP congressional baseball practice June 2017 in Alexandria, Virginia, by left-wing gunman James Hodgkinson, a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.).

Scalise also reacted to the violence carried out against U.S. Navy veteran and GOP California congressional candidate Rudy Peters on Sunday. Peters, who supports President Donald Trump and his agenda, is running against incumbent Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), one of the most vociferous Trump critics in the House of Representatives.

Peters was manning a booth with a friend at a fair Sunday in Castro Valley when he heard somebody screaming, “F*** you, Donald Trump” and saw 35-year-old suspect Farzad Fazeli walking toward him with his “middle finger extended.”

“The next thing we know, [Fazeli] stops, turns around and says, ‘I’ll show you,'” Peters told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “And he pretty much bumrushes the table.”

Peters said that Fazeli picked up a coffee cup that had been holding pens and flags in it and threw it at Peters. Fazeli missed and the mug broke. Peters said he then grabbed Fazeli and threw him to the ground before backing away.

“He had a beer in his hand … and people were screaming,” Peters said. “And he jumps immediately up, reaches in his pocket, pulls out a knife and he’s got it over his head, and he’s screaming, ‘I’m going to kill you [motherf*****]. I’m going to kill you.'”

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Peters saw Fazeli struggling to push the switchblade button with his thumb.

“So, at that point, I’m pretty much fearing for my life,” Peters said. “I just looked around and grabbed kind of a sign at another vendor’s booth, a little plastic [one,] kind of like a sandwich-board sign, and held it up because I thought when this lunatic gets, you know, gets this knife out, he’s going to kill me.”

After another person began yelling at Fazeli, he turned around and fled the scene, Peters said. Fazeli was arrested and charged with felony assault and other crimes.

Scalise urged Democrats to rebuke the violence, saying, “They really need to be called on to call out this kind of violence.”

“If this was going on on the Right, you know what would happen, Laura. Every mainstream media outlet would be reporting this, calling on each one of us [to comment.] They’d have microphones in our faces, ‘Will you denounce it?'” Scalise said. “And you know what? I would denounce it. I’d denounce anything that happens on either side.”

“But you don’t see that enough from the Left, and it needs to happen more and they need to be challenged,” Scalise added. “Where are these liberal talk-show hosts that yell and scream and rave if their incitement is actually leading somebody to go and commit violence and resort to violence? That’s not what this country’s about.”

Ingraham urged every American to “take” the rhetoric “down a notch.”

“I’m very upset about what’s going on. And Republicans have to be careful with their rhetoric — the president, everybody, has got to take it down a notch,” Ingraham said. “It’s way too hot. And debate is great, but it’s obscene what’s happening.”