Raphael Warnock: “Mr. President, I rise tonight in deep sadness for a nation that is increasingly beset by political violence. Yesterday…”

“Mr. President, I rise tonight in deep sadness for a nation that is increasingly beset by political violence. Yesterday, political activist Charlie Kirk was killed while speaking to students on a college campus--a place that is set up for the exchange of ideas. He was just 31 years old, a husband, a father of young children. I pray for his wife Erika and for his children who must now make their way without him. And his death comes on the heels of the devastating assassination of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman of Minnesota, victims of premeditated political violence. This should shock the conscience of every American, and it should cause all of us to rise up and say: Enough. Let me be clear. I disagreed with Charlie Kirk on just about everything, but I rise tonight not in spite of those differences but, in a real sense, because of those differences. I rise to say that he had a right to speak, to think, to change his mind or not, to engage with others, to participate in the free exchange of ideas, to argue it out. That is what it means to live in a democracy. That is who we are. We Americans engage in loud, heated, and sometimes rambunctious debates, not as a precursor to violence but to avoid violence.”