Tester on His Rhetoric Being Used by Trump Impeachment Defense: I ‘Should Have Chosen My Words Better’ But They Are Trying to ‘Distract’

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) reacted to former President Donald Trump’s defense team using his past rhetoric during their presentation at the Senate’s impeachment trial by saying that he “should have chosen my words better” and that former president’s defense is attempting to “distract Americans from a months-long drumbeat of truly dangerous rhetoric that culminated in violent, deadly attacks at our Capitol.”

Tester said, “I will tell you that, look, I don’t condone violence in any form, and I should have chosen my words better when I gave that interview several years ago. But let’s be clear, this was a desperate attempt by the defense to distract Americans from a months-long drumbeat of truly dangerous rhetoric that culminated in violent, deadly attacks at our Capitol. It came within a few hundred feet of destroying our democracy. And so, I think the fact they ran these videos over and over and over again shows that they didn’t really have a lot to say about their defense of the president.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett