Kurt Bardella Connects Atlanta Spa Shootings to Trump’s ‘China Virus’ Rhetoric: ‘It Makes Me Sick’
Frequent Morning Joe guest Kurt Bardella blamed the inflamed rhetoric from former President Donald Trump for a recent spike in anti-Asian violence, suggesting that Tuesday’s mass shooting at several Atlanta-area Asian spas was the latest result of such xenophobia.
The shooting left eight people dead, including six Asian women, according to reports. While authorities have not announced a motive in the killings, the correlation with a rise in violence against Asian Americans has raised alarms.
Appearing on Morning Joe, Bardella cited a number of anti-Asian American attacks across the nation of late, saying “this is a systemic problem right now that’s reached crisis point.” He then asked “Why is this happening? Why have we seen, according to new data, this huge uptick in violence against Asian Americans?”
The answer? The 150 percent rise in anti-Asian American hate crimes “all coincides with the rhetoric of the Republican party using terms like ‘China Virus’ and ‘Kung-Flu,'” Bardella explained. He then cited the 164 Republicans who voted against a resolution put forward by Rep. Grace Meng to condemn violence against Asian Americans.
“Like, how do you vote against something like that how do you tell people who look like me with a recorded vote that our lives mean less than other people’s?” he continued. “How do you condone rhetoric that has been proven to show in sites of violence and hate and makes the world more dangerous for people like me, how do you condone that behavior? How do you clap when someone says China Virus and look the other way time and again when the leader of your party continues to use this type of inflammatory rhetoric?”
Bardella concluded by noting that the deadly insurrection on the Capitol on January 6th was carried out by “supporters of the Trump movement that will take their words literally and perpetrate violence against the targets of them.”
“I’m so tired of going through life with this bullseye on my back by one of the two major parties, It makes me sick,’ he concluded.
During an interview on Fox News with host Maria Bartiromo Tuesday night, former President Trump again referred to Covid-19 as the “China Virus.”
Edit note- this post has been edited since being published to correctly identify Bardella as a frequent guest and not a paid contributor to MSNBC.
Watch above via MSNBC.
