A “Morning Joe” panel on Tuesday expressed outrage over Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton’s Monday comments against anti-Israel protesters who blocked traffic on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.
Activists blocked traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge in an “economic blockade to free Palestine,” and Cotton said that if the event happened in Arkansas then the protesters would likely have been thrown in the water or had their “skin ripped off” if they had “glued their hands to the car or the pavement.” The MSNBC panel characterized Cotton’s remarks, which he made on Fox News, as “shocking” and “dangerous,” with host Joe Scarborough suggesting former President Trump played a role in them. (RELATED: Senator Challenges Tom Cotton For Senate GOP Conference Chair)
“This was a little startling,” host Mika Brzezinski said. “Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas suggesting Americans take matters into their own hands when it comes to pro-Palestinian protesters.”
She also said the remarks were “a little over the top.”
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The protesters reportedly want to block American taxpayer money from going to Israel, as well as to stop providing weapons to the country in its war against terrorist group Hamas.
“But here we have a guy, Tom Cotton, that went to Harvard, undergrad and law school, served in the military, who’s talking about throwing people off the Golden Gate Bridge, ripping their skin off,” Scarborough said. “We had a United States senator go on a network, national network, suggesting that Americans rip skin off of people’s hands because they’re aggravated and take matters into their own hands. This is just beyond stupid on his part, beyond dangerous on his part, to say this. And I must say, this goes – Tom Cotton that used to be on this show, pre-Trump, would never have said something like this. Never.”
“The Tom Cotton that we interviewed time and again on this show would have never said anything like this,” he added. “This shows how violence and violent rhetoric has become normal practice in the Republican Party. These are the people who are preparing for a guy who has promised to be a dictator from day one.”
The protests interfered with traffic in cities across the United States, including Philadelphia, New York City and Chicago, where they blocked roads leading to the O’Hare Airport, as ABC7 Chicago reported.
“People like Tom Cotton and people like the guy who is in trial today, downtown Manhattan, they continually run this country down, that there’s something wrong with this country,” MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle said, referring to Trump. “That there is something going on in this country that is against you and me, average citizens. They have done this. They have roiled the pot in this country to a point where the anger, the unspoken anger of people, the unearned anger of people, has disrupted who we are.”
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