Dem Tells CNN Trump ‘Rules By Threat’ — Makes Lawmakers Fear ‘For Their Families’ Safety’
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) told CNN anchor John Berman that President Donald Trump “rules by threat” after Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) went viral for telling a crowd she’s “afraid” of Trump “retaliation.”
Sen. Murkowski spoke at a leadership conference hosted by The Foraker Group, and was asked how to deal with fear and anxiety under Trump:
MURKOWSKI: We are all afraid. It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.
On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, guest anchor John Berman played Murkowski’s remark, and asked if he has sensed that fear in colleagues:
BERMAN: She’s anxious about using her voice because the retaliation is real, she says.
Is that something that you can perceive in the House, maybe among some of your Republican colleagues?
GOLDMAN: I have not heard it directly, but the fact that Donald Trump rules by threat and fiat has come out and has a real chilling effect on members of Congress and mostly Republicans. And Mitt Romney had a whole chapter in his book about how a Republican colleague of his told him that he changed his vote because he was fearful for his family’s safety.
And you now have Donald Trump, who has a cult following behind him and threatens people, attacks them if they cross him as well now, he released and pardoned a militia of January 6th, criminal convicts who will do anything he says. And so, there’s got to be thoughts of this. And let me just explain for a minute why that’s so dangerous. Okay, you might say, all right, well, that’s, you know, a hazard of the job, but think about whether any of us want to vote a certain way, but because we fear for our personal safety or our family’s personal safety, we decide to vote differently.
We are no longer representing our constituents. We are representing something else, something else, more like the person, the bully who’s threatening us. That is how Vladimir Putin operates. That is how Viktor Orban operates. That is how dictators operate. And that’s how our democracy dies. Because if you are not voting based on the merits and the substance and your voters and constituents, then you are not a representative elected official and you are not part of a truly Democratic body.
Watch above via Anderson Cooper 360.
