Response to U.S. Senator Ron Johnson‘s remarks to a right wing radio host that he felt safe during the January 6 insurrection has exploded over the past few days, and now the embattled Republican lawmaker from Wisconsin is fighting back.
“It has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with riots,” Johnson told WISN-AM radio Monday, as the AP reports. “I completely did not anticipate that anybody could interpret what I said as racist. It’s not.”
He added, “there’s no racism involved.”
Johnson last week told talk show host Joe Pags he did not feel threatened during the domestic terror riots, but if they MAGA protestors had been members of Black Lives Matter he would not have felt safe.
“I’ve made the comment that on January 6 I never felt threatened. Because I didn’t,” he stressed, meaning that he did not feel threatened.
“And mainly because I knew that even though those thousands of people there, they were marching the Capitol, were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those are people that love this country that truly respect law enforcement would never do anything to break a law. And so I wasn’t concerned.”
And despite his claim that he “completely did not anticipate that anybody could interpret what I said as racist,” he even prefaced his remarks last week, saying thy “could get me in trouble,” which they did.
“Now had the tables been turned – Joe, this could get me in trouble – had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters. I might have been a little concerned.”
139 law enforcement officers were injured during the January 6 insurrection, what many are calling a domestic terrorism attack. One Capitol Police Officer, Brian Sicknick, died after being attacked. (Two men were just arrested for the assault. No cause of death has yet been determined.) Another officer had his eye gouged out. The MAGA “protestors” set up a a noose, were chanting, “Hang Mike Pence,” and were hunting for the Vice President.
The Dept. of Justice last week said an additional 100 people will be charged and called it the largest law enforcement investigation in U.S. history.
There are countless numbers of people who disagree with Sen. Johnson, and are calling his remarks racist.