House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday slammed Republicans for their "outrageous" accusations that liberal rhetoric and policies caused Wednesday's ballpark shooting on GOP lawmakers in Virginia.
"The comments made by my Republican colleagues are outrageous, beneath the dignity of the job that they hold, beneath the dignity of the respect that we would like Congress to command," the 16-term Democrat said at her weekly news conference at the Capitol, The Hill reports.
"How dare they say such a thing?"
Pelosi, 77, said that any Democratic comments paled to those of President Donald Trump — blaming the GOP for the bitterly partisan rancor in Congress, which she traced back to the Clinton administration.
"It didn't use to be this way," she told reporters. "Somewhere in the '90s, the Republicans decided on a politics of personal destruction as they went after the Clintons.
"That is the provenance of it — and that's what has continued."
House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana was shot in the hip during the attack during a practice of the Republican team at a ballpark in Alexandria, Va., that began shortly after 7 a.m.
Scalise, 51, the No. 3 Republican in the House, remained in critical condition Thursday in a Washington hospital after three surgeries.
Three others — a U.S. Capitol Police officer, a congressional aide and a lobbyist — also were injured. Another Capitol Police officer was also hurt but not shot.
The shooter, identified as James Hodgkinson, 66, from the St. Louis suburb of Belleville, Ill., died from wounds sustained in a shootout with police at the scene.
President Trump visited Scalise in the hospital late Wednesday.
"He's in some trouble, but he's going to be okay, we hope," Trump told reporters on Thursday. "It's been much more difficult than people even thought at the time."
Hodgkinson volunteered for Bernie Sanders during the presidential campaign — the Vermont senator denounced the shooting from the Senate floor — and his social media posts slammed Republicans.
One Facebook post declared: "It's time to destroy Trump & Co."
Conservatives blamed the shooting on liberal policies and rhetoric, with talk-show host Rush Limbaugh charging that the mainstream media "radicalized" Hodgkinson.
"The hatred is raw, it is undiluted, it's just savage," he said on his Wednesday afternoon program. "These are the mainstream of the Democrat base, and I don't have any doubt that they are being radicalized."
Pelosi ripped the accusations Thursday, noting that she has been targeted by Republicans for years in attack ads that have led to "horrible, disgusting" threats against her and family members.
"So, this sick individual does something despicable — and it was horrible what he did, hateful — but for them to all of a sudden be sanctimonious as if they've never seen such a thing before," she said, the Hill reports.
"And I don't even want to go into the president of the United States, in terms of some of the language that he has used."
However, she said later: "You have a president who says, 'I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and nobody would care.'
"When you have people saying, 'Beat 'em up and I'll pay your legal fees.' When you have all the assaults that are made on Hillary Clinton.
"For them to be so sanctimonious is something that I really am almost sad for myself that I have gone down this path with you, because I don't think it's appropriate for us to have the fullest discussion of it," Pelosi said.
"And it'll be for another day."
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