Sen. Tim Scott dodged questions about former President Donald Trump’s “locked and loaded” comment Sunday morning, even as he said he didn’t agree with Attorney General Merrick Garland on anything.
“I do not feel that I agree with Attorney General Garland on any issue. I will say that I have seen the video of the FBI SWAT team raiding Mar-a-Lago, I have not seen the same video of them raiding Joe Biden’s garage. ,” said Scott (RS.C.) when asked for the second time whether the rhetoric is dangerous. “So I would like to have that comparison.”
Scott, a potential vice president who previously ran against Trump in the Republican primaries, did not respond when he hosted Dana Bash asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” whether he thought Trump’s comments that the FBI had raided Mar-a-Lago “locked and loaded” were dangerous, especially since the same language was used in an order for President Joe Biden.
Earlier this week, Trump falsely claimed that FBI agents were “locked and loaded” and that he nearly escaped death when the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents in 2022. He was referring to a disclosure in a court document that says the FBI followed a standard use of force policy that prohibits the use of deadly force unless the officer has reason to believe the individual poses a threat of death or bodily harm brings.
Federal prosecutors are now seeking a gag order in the case, saying his false, inflammatory statements threaten the law enforcement agencies working on the case.
Scott continued to list the dozens of crimes Trump faces with a “two-tiered justice system” — despite Bash noting that the same deadly force language was used in a warrant for Biden in his classified documents case while he was president.
When asked for the third time whether the South Carolina senator found Trump’s language dangerous, Scott responded by saying that growing anti-Semitism on college campuses is the language that worries him.
“The rhetoric that really concerns me doesn’t come from emails, it comes on college campuses when we see the actual physical violence being played out against our Jewish students,” Scott said. “We are actually seeing violence on college campuses. And yet the Democratic Party sits with its hands folded and lets it play out.”
