Ron Johnson Says He Will Not Be 'Silenced' Over His Racist Comments

By Susie Madrak — March 16, 2021

Morning Joe's Joe Scarborough went after Republican senator Ron Johnson this morning for standing by his comments about the Capitol Hill protesters.

"Still trying to downplay this mob, Mika, like Ron Johnson, who said he wasn't concerned, because they were law-abiding people. No, they were bashing police officers' heads, they were jamming police officers' heads in doors. They were bear spraying a police officer who later died," he said.

"These are terrorists. I will say, if Ron Johnson saw these people -- he's a bigot, if you judge him by his words, he's a bigot -- he said, if these were black people, he would have been scared. As I said the day after, if they were black people, they would have all been shot in the face. If they were Muslims, they would have been sniped from the top of the building. They were white people. So --"

"No one knew what to do?" Mika Brezinski said.

"This BS was allowed to continue for too long. The National Guard wasn't called in. Police officers didn't move as quickly. Some Capitol cops were letting them move in and out freely, opening up the gates, letting them run through it. This is grotesque, and it is an insult. It is an insult to the police officers who died that day and who were hurt that day that a United States senator is saying that these were peaceful law-abiding people who he wasn't worried about. He would have been worried if they were black, but they weren't black, so, this didn't bother him," Scarborough said.

"Yeah, there are reporters and people -- staffers, people who work there who are still suffering from PTSD from this day. As you mentioned Ron Johnson, Joe, the Republican senator is defending his comments, if this is possible, that he made about Black Lives Matter protesters and the deadly Capitol riot. Here's what he said late last week, followed by his defense yesterday," Willie Geist said.

I knew that even though those thousands of people that were marching the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break a law, and so I wasn't concerned. Now, had the tables been turned, Joe, this could mean 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.

And:

There was nothing racial about my comments. Nothing whatsoever. This isn't about race. This is about riots. And I was -- you know, I have been attacked and criticized because I pushed back on the narrative that, you know, there were thousands of armed insurrectionists. And that's just part of a -- a small part of the 74 million Americans that voted for President Trump that also need to be suspected of being potential domestic terrorists or also potentially armed insurrectionists. This is a false narrative. I wasn't surprised, but it's still pretty shocking that it would take what I consider a completely innocuous comment and turn it into, you know, use the race card on me.

"An innocuous comment."

"Good lord."

"An innocuous comment where he said, 'I'm going to get in trouble for saying this.' "

"Yeah, so he knew."

"He knew exactly what he was doing."

"He had an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal entitled, Joe, 'I won't be silenced by the left.' No, keep talking, honestly! The left is good."

"Let me tell you, Ron, the left doesn't want you to be silenced, because the more you say bigoted things like the other day, the more you actually help the left."

"And the world sees who you are."

"And the more you hurt Republicans," Scarborough said. "So yes, Ron, they don't want you to be silenced. And of course, you aren't silenced, because you actually wrote an op-ed in one of the largest newspapers on the planet, one of the most important newspapers on the planet. We keep hearing this, Willie. 'I will not be silenced,' as people write op-eds in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and go on national news networks and get more access to the American people than anybody else.

"It's just a stupid, stupid argument. But again, Ron Johnson said he was going to get in trouble for saying this, but these people truly respect law enforcement, unlike Black Lives Matter marchers and they would never break the law. What the hell -- how does he say that when several cops are dead and scores of cops were beaten, battered, and abused by Donald Trump supporters that day?

"They were going around, wanting to hang Mike Pence and chanting it. Had a noose for Mike Pence. They were calling for Nancy Pelosi, wanted to get her. And there were Republicans just as scared of this mob as Democrats. So how does Ron Johnson saying that people's lives being endangered and police officers being killed is not as worrisome to him as black people marching?"