Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Va.) said just days before the midterm elections that he wanted to physically assault his opponent.
Manchin made the comments after an Oct. 31 debate with his opponent, Patrick Morrisey.
“It took every bit of my discipline not to beat the living crap out of them.” The audience cheered his remarks.
Manchin claimed that Morrisey and President Donald Trump are “spewing out horrible things,” noting Trump has visited the state eight times ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
He also said that Morrisey shouldn’t be elected because he doesn’t understand West Virginians. Morrisey, the state’s attorney general since 2013, grew up in New Jersey.
Morrisey took to Twitter to slam the remarks: “The national media should look at so-called Mr. Civility in action. Wish @JoeManchinWV would have agreed to more than one debate. Watch as Manchin loses it as his lead slips away. I will keep outworking him until the end.”
Morrisey added on the subject, saying: “We always have to, as candidates for office, have to reject violence in all forms.”
Manchin’s comments are the latest in a growing list of calls for violence or unrest against Republicans made by prominent Democrats.
The exhortation came shortly after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 presidential election to Trump, saying, “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.”
“That’s why I believe,“ she said. ”If we are fortunate enough to win back the House and or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again.”
In addition, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told supporters in July to “get up in the face of some congresspeople” and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) told a crowd in Los Angeles in June, “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
