Last Updated on November 4, 2022
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) baselessly blamed the “demonization of Nancy Pelosi” for the bizarre attack on her husband, Paul, adding that the country is becoming like “Germany in the early ’30s.”
“This country is on track to repeat what happened in Germany when it was the greatest democracy going, when it elected a chancellor that then co-opted the media,” Clyburn told Fox News on Thursday. “This past president called the press the enemy of the people. That is a bunch of crap. And that is what’s going on in this country.”
House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn: "This country is on track to repeat what happened in Germany in the 1930s [if Republicans win]." pic.twitter.com/lbkdPXVCMQ
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 4, 2022
While Clyburn decried the “demonization of Nancy Pelosi,” he told Fox News that he does not believe President Biden’s incendiary rhetoric against “extreme MAGA Republicans” is the same. Biden’s rhetoric is entirely different, Clyburn claimed, because Biden is attacking a “philosophy” and not an individual.”
“The question is,” Clyburn said, “are we going to have a society that everyone can participate in? Or are we going to have an autocracy?”
James Clyburn is among a group of Democrats who voted against awarding Ohio’s electoral votes to President George W. Bush in 2005, despite Bush wining the state by over 118,000 votes. The group of Democrats cited “election irregularities” as their reasoning for delaying the certification of the 2004 presidential results.
When asked whether this constitutes election denialism — which he and Biden have railed against – Clyburn promptly shot down the question. “It’s totally different,” said Clyburn. “We didn’t call anybody about a change in the votes. We just voted on a process. To protest a process is what we did. Nobody stormed the Capitol. Nobody disrupted the count. We only voted to protest a process, which is a legitimate thing in this country.”
The House Majority Whip went on to downplay inflation concerns, which has polled as one of if not the most important issue in the upcoming midterm elections. “I think that people should be voting in their own self-interest. And their self-interest is much more than what you may or may not be paying for gas or a loaf of bread,” he said.