think there s more things to worry about than who s coarsening the language. i want to talk about something the president said that was striking, defending the 1979 invasion of afghanistan by the soviet union. the washington journal editorial board said we cannot recall a more absurd misstatement of history by an american president. as you know, the soviet union did not invade afghanistan because terrorists from afghanistan were attacking the soviet union, and it is not necessarily considered by americans or even the soviets, now russians, certainly not the afghans, a good thing that they did so. where did he get that idea from? i think that idea s borne out of frustration. the president has been this ties into the comments and the discussions i think you and i have had about syria as well, which is that the president promised that he would have a different middle eastern foreign policy. and he s just very frustrated with the slow progress in afghanistan, and i think that was p
going to tax you 25%. does president trump think that he has played any role in the course setting of our national discourse? no. he doesn t? people can be coarse as this member of congress was. i was glad to see some of my former democrat colleagues distance themselves from that kind of language. the president does use coarse language in private with us. those were public. i recognize that. i don t think anybody blames the president for the coarsening of the language of the you don t think anybody in the country blames the president? you probably do but there s more important thingses too who is coarsening language. i want to ask you about something the president said. he defended of the 1979 invasion of the soviet union in a cabinet meeting. the editorial board said we cannot recall a more absurd statement of history by an american president. as you know, the soviet union did not invade afghanistan because terrorists from afghanistan were attacking the
president trump is not exactly known as a delicate flower when it comes to the language he uses. right. he s sworn publicly quite a bit. take a listen to some of it. we re going to knock the [ bleep ] out of isis. we re gonna knock the [ bleep ] out of it. and you can tell them to go [ bleep ] themselves. you re not going to raise that [ bleep ] price, you understand me? listen, you [ bleep ], we re going to tax you 25%. does president trump think that he has played any role in the national discourse? no, i think people can be coarse, as clearly this member of congress is. by the way, i was glad to see some of my former democrat colleagues distance themselves from that type of language. the president does use coarse language in private a lot with us, many those were public. i recognize it. many people do. but no, i don t think anybody blames the president for the coarsening of the language of the you don t think anybody in the country blames the president? well, y
much better than that. of course. and by most measures, not only the adl s measures, the splc s measures, the global terrorism task force measures, by most measures, by every measure we can find, there s an increase in this right-wing violence and far right violence. whether that s anti-semitic or there s anti-lgbt, anti-muslim, anti-black, anti-immigrant. what the experts believe is that violence correlates to the coarsening of our political rhetoric specifically on the political right, that we saw a massive increase in the militia groups and far right groups after the election of barak obama. but these violence attacks like we saw in pittsburgh and kentucky and like we saw even here at cnn with the bombs being mailed in just a few weeks ago that the way that our political rhetoric has coarsened has only emboldened these types of people and that statements like the president s where he says there are very fine people on both sides of charlottesville, what the experts believe is that
have only emboldened these groups. let s talk about incidents. there s a number we can talk about. authorities in pittsburgh investigating anti-semitic pamphlets that were found around pittsburgh, including squirrel hill. that s where the 11 members of the tree of life synagogue were gunned down back in october. and then in ohio today the fbi announced the arrest of a man allegedly planning attacks against synagogues. here s what the adl found, that a 57% increase in anti-semitic incidents in 2017. it is looking like 2018 was not much better than that. of course. and by most measures, not only the adl s measures, the splc s measures, the global terrorism task force measures, by most measures, by every measure we can find, there s an increase in this right-wing violence and far right violence. whether that s anti-semitic or there s anti-lgbt, anti-muslim, anti-black, anti-immigrant. what the experts believe is that violence correlates to the coarsening of our political rhetoric spec