Rep. Escobar: 'We Have A President Who Has Created An Addiction To Hate'

By Susie Madrak — May 9, 2019

"At his rally in Florida last night, the president declared the United States is being invaded by hordes of migrants and expressed frustration that he's incapable of stopping them -- until an audience member appeared to say he should shoot them, the president reacted with a joke about Florida," Mika said this morning.

TRUMP: This is an invasion. When you see these caravans starting out with 20,000 people, that's an invasion. I was badly criticized for using the word 'invasion.' Folks, it's crazy. And then they say and the wall would help. Not help, the wall would stop it, okay, the wall would stop it. When you have 15,000 people marching up and you have hundreds and hundreds of people and you have two or three border security people that are brave and great. We can't let them use weapons. Other countries do. We can't. I would never do that. But how do you stop these people? You can't. There's no -- that's only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement. Only in the Panhandle. So it's a tough situation.

"Joining us now, member of the House Judiciary committee, Democratic assistant whip, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar of Texas. Where would you like to begin when it comes to reacting to the president's comments yesterday from the invasion to the joke?" Mika asked.

"I'll tell you, that clip, when I saw it last night, it made me very, very sad, very sad for our country, that we are at such a moral rock bottom and that we have a president who has created an addiction to hate, an addiction to bigotry and he uses every opportunity he can to feed and grow that addiction," the congresswoman said.

"We are in so many crises. So we are juggling as Americans so many crises. This moral crisis is very painful to watch unfold."

Willie Geist asked about yesterday's vote that found AG Bill Barr in contempt.

"The attorney general gave us no choice. Chairman Nadler has tried for over two months to get access to materials and information that rightfully belongs in the hands of the Congress," Escobar said.

"We are the people's House. We are here to do the people's work. They have stalled, stonewalled, obstructed. The committee has done everything possible to accommodate Mr. Barr, to make sure that we bend over backwards to assure that accommodations are made. By essentially refusing to provide the report, by not showing up to a hearing, and by sending a letter about executive privilege, before we even walked into the hearing room, hereby gave us no choice. Yesterday I wanted to remind the American public why this hearing in particular is so important. The United States was attacked by Russia, and the president and his family and his team knew about it, welcomed it, never reported it and then the president tried to obstruct an investigation about that attack.

"The Russians are still at it today. They were very successful in their attack against the United States, and all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, should be working to get to the full truth so that we can prevent an attack on us again."

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