Reflecting on former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ recovery over the past year, Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert admits it was a “bad idea” to say that people would understand if he had been shot, since Giffords was one of the “nicest” members of Congress.
“Well, the exact quote was Gabby is, was — what made it so tough is that Gabby is one of the nicest people in Congress and I did say people would have understood if somebody had shot me. But my staff has jumped all over me and said ‘don’t be inviting that, don’t even bring that up,’” Gohmert told The Daily Caller in an interview.
“It’s probably not a good idea to say — yeah — ‘people would understand if I got shot,’ so I’m going to try to avoid that for the future. But I can’t deny I said it. Yeah, I did say that, but I’ll try to avoid that for the future.”
A quote attributed to Gohmert was spreading on Twitter after the ceremony for Giffords on the House Floor Wednesday.
“The fact that she was the nicest person. … Makes it so much harder. Somebody would have understood if they shot me,” said Gohmert, according to tweets from Fox News’ Chad Pergram.
TheDC asked Gohmert, a close friend of Giffords, if he thinks she will come back to Congress.
“I don’t know. I think a lot of that depends on her progress after this,” he said. (RELATED: Rep. Gohmert’s interview with TheDC’s Ginni Thomas)
“She, I mean, it’s incredible that Gabby is alive. So, to go from there to where she is, where she can communicate — where she has memory and response and does so well and still retails the graciousness she had before the shooting — is just fantastic.”
Gohmert said the public does not realize the stress put on members of Congress.
“It is and always will be the greatest honor I’ve ever had in my life to serve in Congress, but make no mistake: It sucks a lot of life out of you if you’re doing the job right, because the job means serving,” he said.
“Who knows what the future holds but I’m just, thank God that she has done so well.”