Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., on Wednesday called out her Democratic opponent in her state’s Senate race for failing reprimand another Democrat for saying he hopes Blackburn jumps off a bridge.
Last week, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said Trump would soon visit Tennessee to endorse Blackburn, and said she would do anything Trump says if she wins.
“[I]f he says, ‘jump off the Harahan Bridge,’ she’ll jump off the Harahan Bridge. I wish he’d say that,” he said to laughter in the room.
On Fox News Wednesday, Blackburn said she was surprised her Democratic opponent, who was in the room at the time, didn’t condemn the comment.
“I thought, surely he really didn’t say this, and surely there was not laughter,” she said.
“You expect that with Phil Bredesen, my opponent, being in the audience, that he would have said, ‘We don’t say things like that, we don’t wish someone’s demise or death,'” she added.
She called Cohen’s remark “completely inappropriate,” and dismissed his apology last week when he said he was joking and doesn’t wish Blackburn any harm.
“I do not know why there is such a level of vitriol,” Blackburn said when asked on Fox why the political rhetoric has become more violent.
