On the recordDecember 21, 2017
Mr. President, 6 months ago, on a beautiful June morning, just a few miles from here in Alexandria, VA, a man with a gun opened fire on me and several of my Republican colleagues. In the chaotic aftermath of that awful morning, the gunman's purpose slowly became clear. Because of our beliefs and our political affiliation, this individual believed my colleagues and I should die. Since that day, I struggled to understand this thinking. How could any American look onto a field that June morning, where a bunch of middle- aged men were playing baseball, and see the enemy? Some of the bombastic rhetoric being offered this week in response to the tax reform bill has given me pause. If you listen to some of the hyperbolic vitriol that opponents of this bill are producing, the attitude that nearly killed my friend Steve Scalise and threatened many more lives begins to make a perverse kind of sense. When respectable public figures go on television or take to Twitter and announce that thousands, if not millions, of Americans are going to die as a direct result of the passage of a tax reform bill, what impact do we expect this to have on the thinking of many Americans? If a person takes such outlandish statements as true, attacking Members of Congress in support of the measure almost appears to be a moral action. This could lead someone to believe that killing a few legislators might save the lives of millions of Americans.…





