‘Republicans Are Not Nazis’: Senate Dem Opens Kash Patel Hearing By Urging Civility

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) opened a Senate hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday by calling for civility from both sides of the aisle, declaring “Republicans are not Nazis” and Democrats “are not evil.”

On Tuesday morning, Durbin made a “personal note” before Patel was sworn in. The senator argued the United States is going through a “similar period of division and political violence” as the ’60s when political figures like John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. were all assassinated.

Durbin noted the assassinations of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman this year when calling for civility.

Kirk was shot and killed last week during an event at a Utah college campus. Hortman and her husband were shot and killed in their home in June.

“All of us in public life on both sides of the aisle have a responsibility to bring down the temperature and to work to unite the American people,” Durbin said.

“Let’s be clear. Republicans are not Nazis, and Democrats are not evil, as Mr. Patel has claimed,” he said. “Democrats are not responsible for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and Republicans were not responsible for the murder of Melissa Hortman. Our political opponents are not our enemies, we are all Americans, and we should be working together to keep the American people safe and protect their constitutional rights.”

Watch above via CSPAN.