The leaders of the Democratic and Republican House campaign committees issued a bipartisan call for unity on Sunday, saying the deadly shooting of 11 worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue and the bomb threats made against President Trump’s critics should not be fodder for political attacks as the midterm elections approach.
“No one should be politicizing what happened this week,” said Rep. Ben Lujan, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told “Fox News Sunday.” “We should come together as a country.
His GOP counterpart, Rep. Steve Stivers called on his congressional colleagues to work together before the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
“I want to say that Ben is not my enemy. Democrats are not my enemy. They are my opponents, and while we have different visions for the future of America, different directions, we are all Americans first,” he said on Fox.
But Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said the president is failing at attempts to unify the nation.
“This president’s modus operandi Is to divide us. … It’s not enough that a day on a tragedy he says the right words, if every other day of the year he’s saying things to bring us into conflict with one another,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, said the president shouldn’t be blamed for actions of a “hate-filled individual” but conceded that Trump needs to be “more clear in his rhetoric and doesn’t need to be as caustic in his rhetoric.”
Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said all politicians should work to tamp down the bombast.
“I think those of us in national office, our president, those who would hope to be president, those of us in Congress who have louder microphones and who are heard from and seen more regularly need to take responsibility for ways in which we lower the temperature,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
A Florida man, Cesar Sayoc, was arrested on Friday for mailing pipe bombs to prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Maxine Waters of California and billionaire donor George Soros.
The devices did not explode and none of the targets were injured.
On Saturday, a gunman shouting “all Jews must die” opened fire on a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa., killing 11 people who were attending a baby-naming ceremony.
Robert Bowers was charged with 29 federal counts – including hate crime offenses.
Trump has been criticized for his comments at recent campaign rallies where he continued to call the news media the “enemy of the people” and heaped praise on a Montana congressman who body slammed a reporter in 2017.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder has also come under criticism for saying earlier this month that when Republicans go low, “we kick them.”
