Republican Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis, who was present at the GOP baseball shooting, said Democrats need to tone down the “vitriolic” rhetoric they are using against the Senate health bill.
CNN’s Kate Bolduan asked Davis during a Tuesday interview what he thought of Democrat Rep. Jackie Speier’s claim that people are “guaranteed to die” if the Senate health bill passes.
“You know, it’s sad to hear,” Davis said. “A week ago I stood here in this same hallway in a baseball practice uniform asking everyone — all of us here in Congress, and in the media too — to tone down this hateful and vitriolic rhetoric.”
“Jackie, of all people, understands what it’s like to go through the same terror that many of us did just a few short weeks ago,” he continued, presumably referring to Speier being shot five times during the Jonestown airstrip shootings. “I would hope that we could, instead of using vitriol like that, and lets actually talk about our policy differences.”
Davis then defended the Medicaid cuts in the Senate health bill, explaining that there are numerous young and healthy people currently receiving Medicaid that would be better served by job creation.
“We’ve got to work to get them off Medicaid and into an employer-based health care system,” he said.
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