When asked by Fox News host Bret Baier if he believed Donald Trump should speak out more aggressively about the violent insurrection that happened at the Capitol today, Republican Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz responded:
“Look, I’ve spent five years with everyone trying to say what the President should say or shouldn’t say,” Gaetz said. “All I can tell ya is my view of what happened today does not represent the Trump supporters who I’ve gotten to know and love, the thousands and millions of them who I spent a lot of time with over the last four years and really intensely over the course of the last six months. I think the president was right to tell people to be peaceful, to keep the protest peaceful, to stop anything that wasn’t peaceful, but I think he ought to do what he always does: he ought to keep talking to this because I think there’s a lot of Americans out there who are rattled by what they saw. You know I understand a sixteen year old young woman who was shot, you know maybe she was doing terrible things and deserved to be shot, but as we– When people breach these lines and they go after cops–You know, we’re the– we’re the party that talks about law and order and respecting cops. We shouldn’t be taking them on and challenging them. You know, I work in the Capitol and I worked in the White House; I think these are very sacred places. I- I- I want people to be able to aggressively disagree with politicians from the other party but there’s got to be some rules of the road and some boundaries and these people crossed it today.”
Gaetz was careful to mention that he wants people to aggressively pursue members of “the other party,” not his own.
Note: The identification of the woman shot at the Capitol today has not been released, nor has her age. She died after being wheeled out of the Capitol with a Trump flag around her neck.