Sen. Coons: Trump Has Used ‘Megaphone’ to ‘Energize Folks Based on Division’

JOHN DICKERSON: I'll start with you where I started with Senator Lankford for-- in the United States, anti-Semitic violence increased fifty-seven percent between 2016 and 2017. Why do you think that is?

SENATOR CHRIS COONS: Well, I think that's because of the caustic tone of our national politics. I am concerned that this hateful, deranged act by a man acting on his anti-Semitic hatred is just the latest in a series of violent incidents this past week that shows that our national political culture is motivating folks who are inspired by hate, by fear, by bigotry to take up and-- and act on their deranged ideas. I think there's a responsibility for all of us to lower the tone of hatred and division in our country.

JOHN DICKERSON: Is that the way you see it--all lawmakers, all people in public life, share the responsibility equally or are there portions of the culture that have more work to do than others?

SENATOR CHRIS COONS: Well, I think those of us in national office, our President, those who would hope to be President, those of us in Congress who have louder microphones and who are heard from and seen more regularly need to take responsibility for ways in which we lower the temperature. Senator Lankford and I are the co-chairs of the weekly Senate prayer breakfast. We get together every week with a bipartisan group of several dozen Senators and one of the things we focus on is trying to meet each other in a spirit of humility and prayer and to see each other as real people, not as evil enemies, not as-- more than just political opponents and one of the things that really concerns me that weighs on my heart, John, is the ways in which our President and a number of other national political leaders of both parties have used their megaphones in order to inspire and instill and energize folks based on division rather than based on unity.

(via Breitbart)