Sen. Marco Rubio said Sunday that he concerned someone could die as a result of Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s heated rhetoric and tacit support for violence by supporters.
Asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday if he was concerned that the escalation in violence could result in someone being killed, Rubio said he is.
“I am very concerned about that,” Rubio responded. “I think that all the gates of civility have been blown apart.”
Rubio said the political discourse has become very “dangerous.”
“There are people out there that are unbalanced, there are people out there that do not have control of themselves,” he said. “We don’t know what they will do. And this applies to both sides, by the way.”
While Rubio included the left in his critique, he put the most responsibly on Trump, who has told his supporters he would like to see protestors beaten and punched. Trump said Sunday that he may pay the legal fees of a backer facing assault charges for punching an African-American man demonstrating at a Trump rally. The Trump backer also threatened on camera to kill the protestor if he returned.
Rubio said he may back away from his pledge to support the Republican presidential nominee if it is Trump.
“It’s getting harder every day to justify that statement to myself, to my children, to my family, and to the people that support me,” Rubio said. “This country deserves better. At some point, people have to wake up here. This is really going to do damage to America.”
“We’ve reached the point now where people in American politics have decided that if they don’t agree with you that they can get angry with you,” and call you “bad or evil,” he said.
“You just can’t just say or do whatever you want,” he added. “This is not about politcal correctness. This is about rules of civility.”
“Do we really want to live in a country where everybody hates each other? Where everybody is at each others’ throat?”
“It feels like we are reaching a point where in America everyone hates each other,” Rubio said.
