In the hours after a mass shooting by a Bernie Sanders-supporting, anti-Trump individual, CBS’s live coverage on Wednesday strangely cited the Hillary Clinton “lock her up” chant during a discussion on political violence. A few minutes after reading a litany of James T. Hodgkinson’s social media rants, Charlie Rose shifted, “Clearly we saw that during a campaign.”
He continued, “People talk about things like, you know, ‘lock her up' and we saw some of the most crude political language that we heard, even though there is a long history of political attacks in the American politics since the Founding Fathers.”
While the exact reason Hodgkinson snapped isn't known, it clearly wasn't anti-Hillary Clinton chants.
Rose concluded of the 2016 election: “We did see expressions that we had not heard before. This has been a season of course political rhetoric.”
A few minutes earlier, reporter Jeff Pegues alerted viewers to Hodgkinson’s liberal rants: “Trump is a traitor. He has destroyed our democracy.... It's time to destroy Trump and co.”
A partial transcript is below:
CBS Live coverage
6/14/17
12:00JEFF PEGUES: This suspect, James T. Hodgkinson from Belleville, IL, 66-years-old, left a trail of information for investigators on his social media pages, including Facebook. There was some anti-Trump postings on his Facebook page. I'm going to read a few. Quote, “Trump is a traitor. He has destroyed our democracy.” Quote, “It's time to destroy Trump and co.” I suspect he meant company there. So those are just two of the postings that we have. Those were posted in March. He also called Republicans quote, “clowns.” So for those who think, and Senator Rand Paul mentioned this, that maybe this was politically motivated. This is the type of information that suggests that perhaps it was.
12:12
CHARLIE ROSE: We saw during the time that members went back home because of some of the debates in Congress, they were particularly raucous town meetings. Not about threats to their lives but clearly of the level in, in combativeness was more apparent than ever.
NANCY CORDES: I have been at some of the town halls where you can tell that the member of Congress is up on the stage and making a calculation about are these people simply angry and frustrated and getting feelings out or is there more too it than that? Is there a sinister intent behind the anger they are showing to the members of Congress? And there were situations where members had to be hustled out by security, taken out by a back door because they were worried that the crowd was getting too spun up.
Obviously, people have every right to be passionate about political issues. And, in fact, that passion translates to a lot of influence in the country whether it's on the right or the left. People know that, you know, that showing strong beliefs and getting large crowds together is the way that you influence your member of Congress. So, it can be very difficult for a member or their staff to know the difference between people who are simply exercising their First Amendment rights and want to make sure that their representative knows how strongly they feel and someone who has a more menacing intent.
CHARLIE ROSE: Clearly we saw that during a campaign. Which people talk about things like, you know, ‘lock her up’ and we saw some of the most crude political language that we heard even though there is a long history of political attacks in the American politics since the Founding Fathers. We did see expressions that we had not heard before. This has been a season of course political rhetoric.
