President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans latched onto protest scenes as an issue in the wake of the fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation, using the word “mob” early and often on Saturday.
Following Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Republican leaders invoked the word in an attempt to paint Democrats as “angry” and desperate to block the conservative majority.
Trump in Topeka, Kansas
“In their quest for power, the radical Democrats have turned into an angry mob,” Trump said at a rally in Topeka, Kansas, on Saturday. “You saw that today with the screaming and the shouting, not from the 200 people or less – you know what? Those people, they couldn’t fit in the front row.”
“You don’t hand matches to an arsonist, and you don’t give power to an angry left-wing mob,” he added. “That’s what they have become. The Democrats have become too extreme and too dangerous to govern. Republicans believe in the rule of law, not the rule of the mob.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
“It’s a good day for America and an important day for the Senate,” McConnell said at a news conference following Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote on Saturday. The Kentucky senator added that Senate Republicans “refused to be intimidated by the mob of people who were coming after Republican members.”
“Our base is fired up. We finally discovered the one thing that would fire up the Republican base, and we didn’t think of it. The other side did it. The tactics that have been employed both by Judiciary Committee Democratic senators and by the virtual mob that has assaulted all of us in the course of this process has turned our base on fire.”
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley
“They have encouraged mob rule,” the Iowa senator said on the Senate floor on Friday. “It has been made worst by what has happened to Judge Kavanaugh. I hope we can say no to mob rule by voting to confirm Kavanaugh.”
Senate Judiciary member Orrin Hatch
“Americans outside the beltway don’t take kindly to the Washington smear machine, and a paid mob trying to prevent senators from doing the will of their constituents,” the Utah senator said in a tweet on Saturday. “It’s time to heal and to move on. But that doesn’t mean we forget what happened here.”
Sen. Marco Rubio
“Imagine the coverage on cable news if an angry mob of conservatives stormed the steps of the Supreme Court building,” the Florida senator said in a tweet on Saturday. “It wouldn’t be the breathless giddiness we are seeing right now. It wouldn’t be awe at the bravery of someone climbing up on the statue of Lady Liberty.”
Donald J. Trump for President campaign
“Democrats want this country to be a place where the witch hunters call you guilty and force you to prove your innocence before the screaming mob,” the Trump campaign wrote in a fundraising email to supporters.
