In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) admitted that he was wrong when he told students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, to take CPR classes instead of fighting for gun control.
Santorum, who has accepted money from the National Rifle Association while in office, got into trouble when he made the claim and medical experts were quick to denounce the comments as helpful. Parkland students David and Lauren Hogg were angry with Santorum and explained when someone is shot in the head with an AR-15 no amount of CPR will help.
“I blame myself. I said that wrong comment Sunday and I got everybody off on a rabbit trail,” Santorum admitted.
“You’ve got people putting up Nazi effigies of these kids who survived this murderous shooting,” Cuomo shouted back. “You have them lying about a young woman ripping up the Constitution when it was a target. They’re lying! They’re creating bogeymen and nobody is calling them out.”
He demanded to know what Santorum says to those people telling the Parkland students to “shut up and nobody should listen to them because they’re not going to come up with solutions.
“Look, I condemn both sides,” Santorum said.
“You sound like Trump after Charlottesville,” Cuomo shot back.
Santorum then went on to blame the left for attacking NRA members. He seemed to get angry with Cuomo’s accusation of “Charlottesville” and “both sides,” and the interview quickly devolved into chaos.
Cuomo ultimately stopped it to bring it back to what the far-right is doing to demonize the Parkland students.
“That’s the state of play right now,” Cuomo said. “And don’t create some false equation with this and something else because it’s disingenuous to the truth of this situation.”
Santorum attempted to say he doesn’t believe in that and Cuomo demanded he stand up to those on his side who are demonizing the children.
Earlier in the argument, Cuomo shouted down Santorum’s attempts at “false narratives,” such as taking people’s gun and repealing the Second Amendment.
“That’s also BS,” he said. Any rational thinker that looks at the data on this issue. And by the way Americans should remember that guys like you didn’t even want the government studying this problem. Said tax dollars shouldn’t go to it. That just changed now. We don’t even look at the damn problem with our best eyes and resources, ” Cuomo shouted at Santorum. “What does that tell you, Rick? Why would you say that the government shouldn’t look at — it smacked of such obvious political convenience. Access matters. There should be a big fat debate on the floor of Congress. It should be weighed and measured and people should go out and vote on this. Your leadership won’t even put it on the floor, why?”
Watch the video below: