Congressman Mike Kelly, who attended the deadly rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt, called on Americans to “wake up” and stop acting “like a third world country.”
“Physically I’m fine. Mentally I’m fine. But … this has to stop. This absolutely has to stop,” said Kelly, who represents Butler County,The Hill on Sunday.
Trump was grazed by a bullet just minutes into his evening rally, sending shockwaves through the nation at a time of deep division in American politics. The gunman, identified by federal authorities as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, killed one person in the crowd while critically wounding two others before being “neutralized” by Secret Service agents.
Kelly said neither he nor his wife, grandchildren or other relatives who attended the rally were harmed.
It is high time to “take a deep dive into what has happened to America,” the Pennsylvania Republican continued. “This is certainly not the America I grew up in and where my parents went through the Great Depression and World War II to make sure we had a future. But that is what we are now, the way we are now: like a third world country.”
“It is no longer the United States of America. It is the divided states of America – and too radical,” he added.
Kelly stressed that all Americans – regardless of their political views – must take a close look at their increasingly polarizing rhetoric.
“The reality is you have to be accountable for what you say, and I think we have to start taking personal responsibility for that,” Kelly said. “It’s not about a party, it’s not about a group of people.”
Unlike other members of his party, some of whom immediately blamed President Joe Biden after the violence, Kelly said it was “too early to point the finger.”
President Joe Biden also warned at his press conference on Sunday afternoon: “Don’t make assumptions about (the shooter’s) motives and connections.”
The assassination attempt occurred two days before Trump was scheduled to attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where he is expected to be nominated as the Republican presidential candidate.
Meanwhile, former Secret Service agents are questioning the current agency’s handling of the shooting. The chairman of the House Oversight Committee announced that his panel would launch an investigation into the incident.
The motive for the massacre and how a man with a gun could have gotten so close to a former president are currently being investigated by authorities. The shooting is being investigated as an attempted murder and an act of domestic terrorism, the FBI said on Sunday.
“The question is, ‘Why did this young man decide that day to kill a presidential candidate?'” Kelly said. “I don’t know if the Secret Service could have done anything against law enforcement to do that. This starts in the hearts and minds of the men and women.”
“It’s time for the whole country – the whole country – to wake up,” Kelly said The Hill“It has now reached a point where it is simply no longer acceptable.”
