Auchincloss: There Are ‘Un-American’ Views on Campus that You Can Use Violence to Stop Speech

On Thursday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) stated that there are too many students that have “un-American” views that it’s okay to use violence to shut down speech and “We need to have liberal and conservative students on college campuses disagreeing better and never using violence.”

Auchincloss said, “What happened to Charlie Kirk is a tragedy and a terror. And the mood on Capitol Hill was devastation, on both sides of the aisle, because it’s not the kind of country we want to live in, where, not just a prominent American exercising his First Amendment rights, but a young father, is gunned down. It’s unconscionable. And this is a moment for moral leadership. I was heartened to hear the president just now say that he wanted to see the response [be] nonviolent. I think that’s important. I think it’s important for politicians of all stripes to say that nonviolence must be the course of action.”

He continued, “There was a recent poll from, I believe The New York Times, that suggested that up to 1/3 of college students in this country think that it’s sometimes acceptable to use violence to shut down speech on campus. That shouldn’t be a left or right issue, Joe, that is un-American. That is not acceptable. We need to have liberal and conservative students on college campuses disagreeing better and never using violence.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett