Editor's note (Frances Langum) - This is the one to watch for today. Righteous!
David Jolly spelled out in excruciating detail yesterday why beating Republicans is the only way we will ever get rational gun control.
"David, I have to start with you. I have had a keen interest in Beto O'Rouke, the senate and his presidential campaign, because of what we just showed in that video. There's a WTF moment in this country every single day when you cover Donald Trump. And if Beto could carve out the WTF questions every day -- I have to say, he puts it back on us. Anyone still asking a question about the role of the president is two steps behind. The train has left that station. And I think you moved the conversation beyond it. What do we do? What do you think?" Nicolle Wallace said.
"I think for every Democratic candidate, this is the opportunity to kind of view them in a very authentic moment, how they may lead the nation in a time of crisis and good for Beto for being raw and honest in that moment. We focused on Donald Trump, his contribution to the national narrative, but Nicolle, I think that gives a pass to the broader Republican party.
"We have to talk about that as well in this moment because it is their silence that normalized this escalation of this narrative across the country that Trump continues to reinforce. It's their inaction on gun control, reasonable gun control measures. I include myself in that. Look, I tried to move the needle within the party and I failed, and It's important in this moment to acknowledge it.
"I find myself today offering the same insight I did at the night of the Parkland shooting a few hours from our home in Florida, which is this: Republicans will never do anything on gun control, nothing, ever. They won't. Think about Las Vegas. They did nothing when 500 people were injured. The Pulse nightclub, 50 killed. The question for the nation was, do we allow suspected terrorists to buy firearms? Republicans did nothing. Parkland, they did nothing. Emanuel AME in South Carolina, nothing. Go to Sandy Hook in Connecticut, nothing. Jewish temple in Pittsburgh, nothing. Jewish temple in San Diego, nothing. Sutherland Springs, evangelical church, nothing. We have in Texas, in the same weekend and all we get is silence.
"I say that because if this is the issue that forms your ideology as a voter, the strength to draw on in this moment is to beat Republicans, beat them. Beat every single one of them. Even the safe ones in the House, beat them. Beat them in the Senate. Take back the Senate," Jolly said.
"You take me away with your bluntness. But you're not wrong. No Republican has ever been moved by any of those tragedies," Nicolle Wallace said. (Editor's note: Not even after one of their own was gunned down at a softball game, I'll add.)
"They have not. They have not. Look, notionally I gathered with the Democrats when they had the House sit-in after Pulse, begging to form some sort of bipartisanship in a moment of national crisis and our leaders couldn't be found. They went home and hid. And this is getting easier for me to say these days, beat Republicans because of this issue, they won't do anything.
"If you're a presidential Democratic candidate right now who has the opportunity to win a pivotal Senate race, drop out of the presidential race and do something for the party that will do something on this. When the Democratic party finds their nominee, beat Donald Trump. Beat him. Get a change there.
"The last thing I will say, Nicolle, to my former Republican colleagues and to Republican voters, if you actually think the Second Amendment was envisioned to protect gun rights in this moment of national tragedy, to allow carnage with weapons of war, if you think that's what the Second Amendment protected, you're fundamentally, constitutionally ignorant. And if you know that's what it's not supposed to protect and you continue to do nothing, you're worse than constitutionally ignorant. You're a scoundrel.
"All I can ever think of in this moment when I see Republicans do absolutely nothing, your time is coming. My mom likes to say the wheels of justice grind slowly but they grind increasingly and exceedingly fine. That is what is happening to a lot of Republican careers in moments like this."
Open thread below...
