House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday insisted the US “can’t go on like this’’ after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump — and likened the former president to Abraham Lincoln.
“America awakens to a rather surreal morning,” Johnson (R-LA) told the “TODAY” show, several hours after a 20-year-old shooter opened fire at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania – grazing the former commander-in-chief and fatally shooting an attendee.
“This is a horrific act of political violence that ought to be roundly condemned. Obviously, we can’t go on like this as a society,” Johnson said.
“Our prayers are with President Trump and all of the rally attendees, certainly the family of the individual that lost their life and those who were injured,” he said.
Johnson compared Trump to assassinated Civil War-era President Abraham Lincoln for how he has been “so vilified” and “persecuted” by the public.
“When the message goes out constantly that the threat to Donald Trump would be a threat to democracy and the Republic would end, it heats up the environment. We cannot do that, it’s simply not true,” Johnson said.
The speaker praised Trump’s bloodied fist-pump in the seconds after the 78-year-old presidential candidate was grazed by a bullet as “a show of strength.
“America awakens to a rather surreal morning. … We can’t go on like this as a society.” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson shares his thoughts on Trump’s assassination attempt. pic.twitter.com/zxwiqcYBJ5
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) July 14, 2024
“I sent [Trump] a text immediately [after the shooting] to just tell him that obviously we all saw what seems to be a miracle,” Johnson said of the near-miss assassination. “It’s just kind of a surreal thing.”
Johnson expressed confidence that the injured Trump’s “inexhaustible reservoir of energy” would see him through the run-up to Election Day in November.
The speaker added that he asked Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “some pointed questions” during a briefing on the incident.
He also reiterated his previous announcement that Congress would perform a full investigation into the shooting and any possible “lapses in security” at the event.
“We’ve gotta turn the rhetoric down, we’ve gotta turn the temperature down in this country,” Johnson said. “We need leaders in both parties, on both sides, to call that out, and make sure that happens, so that we can go forward and maintain our free society that we all are blessed to have.”
The speaker called out President Biden’s comment from a few days ago when he said it was “time to put a bullseye” on Trump.
“I know he didn’t mean what is being implied there, but that kind of language on either side should be called out,” Johnson said.
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