Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) on Thursday made a joint appearance on CNN with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) to denounce America’s political divide in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death — and called on both sides to “bring that temperature down.”
“Inside Politics” host Dana Bash began by chronicling the many incidents of political violence over the past few years, citing the killing of Rep. Melissa Hortman (D-Minn.) and assassination plots against President Donald Trump to argue the issue appears bipartisan.
“It’s all of our faults, right?” Mullin said. “I mean, we stir up the base. If you stir up the base, what do you expect is going to happen? If you stir a fire, coals are going to come out of it. If you pour gasoline on a fire, it’s going to explode. And sometimes we gaslight the base.”
Kirk was fatally shot Wednesday while speaking at Utah Valley University. Conservative voices, such as Fox News host Jesse Watters and the president himself, have respectively blamed “the media” and “radical left” for the right-wing activist’s on-campus killing.
While he initially agreed that such violence is incited by people on “all” sides, Mullin — who recently claimed Fox News isn’t biased — argued Democrats shoulder more of the blame.
