Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, on Monday night that Republicans could try to “kill” Sen. JD Vance.
Raskin was referring to the hostility expressed by a small group of rioters on January 6, 2021, who brought a mock guillotine to the Capitol and were said to be searching for Vice President Mike Pence to punish him for not rejecting the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote.
The speech was bitter, and vindictive — as much of Raskin’s rhetoric has been about Trump, even before he took office.
He said:
Someone should have told Donald Trump that the president’s job under Article II of the Constitution, is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not that the vice president is executed. Pence has now joined more than two dozen officials from Donald Trump’s own administration in denouncing him. A historical record. Pence is the first vice president in more than two centuries not to support the president he served with in a general election. By the way, JD vance, do you understand why there was a sudden job opening for running mate on the GOP ticket? They tried to kill your predecessor. They tried to kill him because he would not follow Trump’s plan to destroy and nullify the votes of millions of Americans. Your votes, Pennsylvania; your votes, Michigan; your votes, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona. Are we going to go back to the days of election suppression and violent insurrection?
In January 2017, Raskin said that Trump should be impeached as soon as he entered the Oval Office, based on a bogus “Emoluments Clause” argument that claimed that income from Trump’s businesses, which included revenue from overseas and foreign guests in Trump hotels in the United States, should disqualify him from office.
Raskin also voted against certifying the 2016 election — ironically, since he later led the House impeachment managers who tried Trump for objecting to the 2020 election results. He also sat on the January 6 Committee, judging Trump and those who followed his example in arguing that Congress could reject the Electoral College vote.
Raskin’s speech, which followed a bitter oration by former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and preceded an incendiary speech by Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), marked a shift from “joy” to division in Democrats’ rhetoric.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
