Justice must be served in the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, who died earlier this week after a police officer pinned him down with a knee to his neck as he cried out that he could not breathe, but "going out and destroying" the city is not the answer to that, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise said Friday.
"It was just disturbing watching the video of what happened to George Floyd," the Louisiana Republican said on Fox News" "Fox and Friends." "We all mourn his loss, and justice needs to be served there. But, just going out and destroying cities is not an answer to that."
Instead, local officials must address what happened to Floyd, said Scalise, but "let's not tarnish his memory with that kind of reaction," Scalise said.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump's early-morning tweet about the rioting, in which he called the rioters "thugs" and said "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," was tagged by Twitter with a warning that it glorified violence. Scalise said he finds it "concerning" that Twitter seems to be picking sides politically.
"It seems like they are carrying out a vendetta against the president," he said. "That's not supposed to be their role. They present themselves as a public square ... they are only censoring selectively thoughts of conservatives and high profile conservatives like the president. Twitter needs to reevaluate what they're trying to do. They will literally force the creation of an alternative that's not going to be censoring and selectively censoring at worse."
Also on Friday, Scalise commented on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to cancel a planned vote on Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act reforms after Trump made it clear he'd violate it.
"Clearly FISA needs to be reformed because it's well-known how it was abused," Scalise said, but he does not think the reform bill went far enough, and it did not require accountability for those who abuse the court process.