GOP Sen. Ron Johnson denied that the statements he made about Black Lives Matter protesters were racist. He said that there was “nothing racial about my comments, nothing whatsoever.”
Since the rioters were primarily “people that love this country, that truly respects law enforcement”, The Republican came under fire for saying that he wasn’t worried for his safety during the Capitol attack. He went on to add that he would have been “concerned” if they were Black Lives Matter or Antifa protesters.
Johnson faced a backlash from Democrats as well as other groups who remarked that his comments were “racist” and “unacceptable”.
Johnson made a statement saying, “This isn’t about race, this is about riots,”. He said “I have been attacked and criticized because I pushed back on the narrative that there were thousands of armed insurrectionists, and that’s just a small part of the 74 million Americans that voted for President Trump that also need to be suspect of being potential domestic terrorists or also potentially armed insurrectionists. This is a false narrative, and so the few of us that push back on that we get mercilessly attacked.”
Johnson further claimed that his comments were not targeted at black protesters because, in fact, he has seen many white participants in Black Lives Matter protests.
Johnson, who is up for re-election in 2022 was non-committal regarding his plans to run again. “I haven’t decided. I’ve got plenty of time,” he said. “These elections are way too long. They cost way too much money — I’m doing everybody a favor.”
