Fox News’s Karl Rove expressed his desire to see the “sons of bitches” who attacked police officers during the January 6 Capitol riot “thrown in jail for a long time” at The AtlanticFestival on Friday.

Moderator Elaina Plott Calabro was facilitating a relatively lighthearted conversation between the fabled Republican strategist and CNN’s David Axelrod, the former advisor to Barack Obama, when she switched gears to discuss political violence.

After referencing the recent attempts on Donald Trump’s life and kidnapping plot against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D), Calabro asked the pair of operatives turned commentators, “What does this say about where this country is at right now, culturally, politically, and what is it going to take for it to change?”

Axelrod took the first at bat at answering and said he was “horrified” by both of the recent assassination attempts on the Republican nominee for president. But he nevertheless followed that up by arguing that Trump’s “rhetoric” has been “tinged with a permission structure for people.”

“We saw it on January 6. It was his words that precipitated an insurrection, violent insurrection at the Capitol,” he continued. “So you can’t sow the seeds of violence and then play the victim.”

When Axelrod finished, Rove kicked off his own answer by condemning what happened on January 6.

“I worked in that building so I feel very strongly. I was 20-years-old when I worked in the Capitol, and so I share a lot of David’s feelings about January 6. I want every one of those sons of bitches who attacked a policeman to be thrown in jail for a long time,” began Rove. “But let’s be careful. I don’t remember the outrage-. I had a friend, he was playing baseball, and he ended up throwing himself on the body of one of his female colleagues in the bottom of a bunker as a madman attempted to kill people and Steve Scalise will carry those wounds the rest of his life. And I don’t remember the outrage.”

He went on to cite the political violence that took place in the United States in the back half of the 20th century.

“So we’ve been through this,” he concluded before arguing that there needed to be “mutual respect” on “both sides of the aisle.”

The post Karl Rove Slams ‘Sons of Bitches’ Who Attacked Cops on January 6: They Should Be ‘Thrown in Jail for a Long Time’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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