The National Football League must suspend Baltimore Ravens star Ray Rice for multiple seasons to teach young football fans that domestic violence is a despicable act, veteran Republican consultant Ed Rollins says.
Rollins, who was national director for the Reagan-Bush '84 campaign, said Monday that he was appalled by a video posted by TMZ Sports showing Rice punching his soon-to-be wife, Janay Palmer, in a hotel elevator in February.
"This was a brutal attack on a woman. I have no idea who started it, but he knocked her out cold," Rollins told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
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"I used to be a fighter and I was a football player. You don't hit women. I don't care whether she married him or didn't marry him or any of the rest of it," Rollins said Monday.
On Monday, the Ravens terminated the multimillion-dollar contract of the star running back and the NFL suspended him indefinitely. Earlier this summer, the NFL sparked outrage by suspending Rice for just two games.
A month after the incident in Atlantic City, Rice and Palmer got married.
Rollins was critical of Dr. Ben Carson, the celebrated neurosurgeon and rising conservative star, who told Steve Malzberg earlier on Monday that Rice should not be demonized for his actions.
"Obviously, anyone who would do something like that needs some help . . . Let's not all jump on the bandwagon of demonizing this guy. He obviously has some real problems," Carson said.
"Ben Carson made a gigantic mistake by commenting on this thing . . . This is a man who obviously has a great background, but [on his] judgment of this person – [Rice] needs to be punished, an example needs to be set," Rollins said.
"Women can't be battered. Assault on women, sexual assault, physical assault, emotional assault, it's rampant in this country, and I'm just outraged by it.
"I don't want this to be a lifetime suspension, but it certainly should be a lot longer than one season . . . We need to make an example of a lot more of these sports heroes. Lots of other kids are going to think they can hit girls. Men are then going to think they can hit women. It's one of the great problems in this country, and it needs to be stopped."
Rollins said Rice easily could have killed Palmer.
"At the end of the day, he punched her lights out. He could have killed her. He's a professional athlete. He hit her so hard. I was a fighter. I know a knockout. She was knocked out cold," he said.
"That's a severe head injury, and my sense is that he showed extremely bad judgment and he has to pay for it."
On how the United States should take on the Islamic State terror group, which has been slaughtering Christians in Iraq and beheaded two American journalists, Rollins said ground troops are necessary.
"Anybody who's a professional knows that. At the end of the day, Americans never want troops on the ground, and what you have to do is you have to make your case to the American public about why you're doing this," Rollins said.
He said President Barack Obama, who will discuss the ISIS issue in an address to the nation on Wednesday, must build strong support among Americans for boots on the ground.
"You can't do it in one speech, you've got to do it constantly . . . You can't have these half-assed efforts to which you basically say we're going to go in, we're going to rot them out, we're going to have a long-term war against them, what have you," he said.
"You underestimate the power of these people and the ruthlessness of these people. These are people that are crucifying their enemies, they're cutting their heads off, they're basically raping women.
"My sense is they will do whatever they can to destroy the Western way of life and we are their number-one target. So, if we see them as that kind of a risk, which I do, go take care of it once and for all."