Sen. James Lankford Comments On Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting

Oklahoma Senator James Lankford says he does not believe the President's rhetoric inspired the mass shooting in Pittsburgh.

“This particular shooter also condemned President Trump saying he was a globalist and he was allowing some of this to happen. I, I don’t see any connection where you would connect the President to this particular shooting. Just like I wouldn’t see that connecting Democrats when a person walked up to a baseball game last year in Washington D.C and said ‘Is this where the Republicans are practicing?’ and then opened fire on them simply because they were Republicans.

So, this issue about a shooting at Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina or shooting in a synagogue or shooting at a Republican baseball practice, this is just hate filled individuals that are very deranged,” said Lankford on Face the Nation.

Senator Lankford says he's asked the president to be clearer and less caustic with his talking points.

He also says detecting domestic terrorism is hard to deal with because Americans are entitled to privacy making investigations more difficult.

Senator Lankford also discussed the current political rhetoric in the US says the solution is to find a way to have a respectful dialogue with one another even when we disagree.

"That is the difficult thing, that is not a legislative task. Everyone says let’s have a vote and let’s solve all these issues. If I go back to what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said years ago, his statement was you don’t overcome hate with more hate and you don’t try to drive out darkness with more darkness, only love can do that. 

As a culture, we’ve got to be able to figure out how to communicate with each other on difficult things. Now again, this person sending out package bombs to people is a very deranged individual, in all likelihood. But the challenge that we have is our social media rhetoric, our intensity of our dialogue is no longer about having dialogue and conversation. It’s shouting someone else down that you disagree with and trying to silence them rather than have a dialogue with them," said Lankford.