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Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) suggested “imbalanced” people are reading “hateful rhetoric” that is making them violent.
Klobuchar appeared Monday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe after Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were fatally shot. Minnesota Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were also seriously injured by gunshots from the same suspect, Vance Luther Boelter, who was taken into police custody on Sunday. Klobuchar agreed with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to increase security for Congress members after the targeted attacks.
“When I was chair of the Rules Committee, I worked really hard to get more security for members’ homes and offices. And that is because of the facts: In 2016, there were about 1,700 threats against members of Congress. Now, in the last year, there were over 9,000 threats,” Klobuchar said.
Klobuchar compared Boelter to David DePape, the man sentenced to life in prison without parole after he attacked former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband. Klobuchar noted that similar threats have also been made against judges.
“They read things online, they believe them, they start acting them out, they already are imbalanced themselves, and they actually go do what they’re reading online,” Klobuchar said. “So that has been a contributor, as well as, of course, a lot of hateful rhetoric, and there are a lot of politicians that should be looking in the mirror and bringing their rhetoric down.”
